The Replacement Assassins
by Sogetsu Kazama
Summary: After refusing to kill for Triese, professional killer Heero Yui goes on the run. Enlisting the aid of a sexy document forger, Usagi, Heero must return his family to the colonies before they are murdered. 7/17/02 Completed** 8/19/02 **Revised and Edited
1. The Ruthless Assassin

The Replacement Killers

Prologue: The Ruthless Assassin

It was Friday night in the bustling city of Los Angeles. It seemed that everyone had something to do, wither it be catching a Laker game, going out on a date, or going street racing people were out of there houses or apartments. And the most popular nightclub in LA wasn't any different. It was packed with women dressed in rather revealing clothing, some rather drunk and loaded, dancing with men who had plans of taking them home, or the closest indiscreet place they can find, and get a little "X-rated". In the midst of all this dancing, drinking, and drug use, stood a man.

A man, that was apparently too over-dressed for the club. He wore what looked like a business suit: black slacks, a black silk button-up dress shirt, black dress shoes, black business jacket, and a red tie. He appeared to be in his mid to late 20's and appeared to be well muscle toned. For his rather "professional" appearance, his chocolate brown hair was messy and unruly and a few stray locks of hair draped over his forehead and into his eyes…his eyes. His eyes is what was unsettling, they were a very dark blue almost navy like and had the look of a man who was completely void of emotion. Yet if he looked into your eyes, he seemed to stare into your very soul. He slowly walked through the crowded dance floor of the night club, clenching his white gloved fists, ignoring the bumps from other people as he just kept staring on at his destination while cutting through the sea of humanity. He finally managed to cut through the dancing people and had reached the small little area of the club in the back where people sat down and ordered drinks and took breaks from dancing. He kept walking towards the back of the club and found a small group of 7 people in a booth, 3 men, 4 women, all laughing and carrying on. In the middle of this little party sat a man who was a very well known drug dealer and loan shark and was known to be as untouchable as Scarface himself. He was currently making out with one of the 4 women who were all hookers no doubt. They were so wrapped up in there own world they never saw him approaching the table. He calmly walked up to the middle of the table in front of the drug lord who was currently getting to do a line of crack, when the man suddenly placed a bullet in front of the line of crack. He looked at the bullet placed in front of him; it was a hollow point bullet with a small kanji symbol etched on the casing.  He quickly recognized the symbol, as he knew there was only one person he knew who carves the symbol for "death" on his bullet, and it was apparent that the person who gave it to him worked for this man. He looked up and made eye contact with the person who gave him the bullet who just stood there casually with his hands linked together in front of him looking back at him. The drug lord was shocked to say the least as he stared into his cold, harsh eyes, he had unmercifully and violently killed many people men, women, and children alike and had done lots of despicable things, but staring back at the emotionless eyes of the man that was sent to "retire" him, sent shivers down to his spine and for the first time in his life he was scared. The drug lord quickly rose to his feet and drew his gun but wasn't fast enough. The well-dressed stranger whipped out his gun hidden inside of his sleeve and quickly shot him 2 times in the chest and once in the head sufficiently killing him. The 2 other men sitting at the table with him brought out there guns. The stranger unloaded 3 shots onto the one on the left, and 4 more on the man on the right. Another one of the drug lord's henchmen rose up from another table not far from were the rest were sitting and came running up shooting at killer, but wasn't very accurate as he missed him. The killer took the advantage and unloaded the remaining bullets in his clip into him. After killing him he looked around and found the last of the drug lord's henchmen, that was on the other side of the club, he was currently running through the sea of humanity that was trying desperately to run out of the club after hearing the first of the gun shots. As he got closer, the gunman noticed that he was empty and dropped the gun, reached around and pulled another gun out of his waist. The henchman started shooting at him and at that very moment he spun around gracefully dodging the shots aimed at his head and returned fire shooting the henchman in the head, killing him instantly. The killer looked around quickly for any more henchmen but they were all taken out. He tucked his gun back into his waist and just as quickly as he entered the now quiet and empty nightclub, he left and disappeared into the night.


	2. Hell to Pay

OK I might as well knock this outta the way. This IS an AU fic and expect people to either be way outta character or slightly outta character. With that said here are the ages for some of the characters in the story I will bring in more ages as more people are introduced so bear with me here, and if your looking for a disclaimer, don't bother cause I don't put them in my fics. I have a universal disclaimer on my bio; so if ya want you can check that out. Well I don't like talking that much in my fics so ill shut what they call "The fuck up" and go on with the story.

Heero – 29

Quatre – 32 

Zechs – 28

The Replacement Assassins

Ch1. Hell to Pay…

It was 4 a.m. and the night was slowly giving way to the rising sun.  A red speedboat was zooming through the normally calm waters of the industrial section of Long Beach Harbor. In the speedboat sat 4 men, 3 of which were all dressed the same way: dressed in all black and wearing sunglasses. The 4th was dressed slightly differently; he wore in all dark gray business suit. His long silver colored hair ran all way down to his waist but was currently billowing out in the wind because of the high speed they traveling. His light blue eyes stared straight ahead of where he was headed and seemed to be unphased by the strong winds blowing into them. His face held an almost amused smirk as he sat down legs crossed enjoying it seemed, but his bodyguards knew all too well it wasn't because of the boat ride.

*************************************************************

Unbeknownst to the riders in the boat, they weren't alone. A man with silver blonde hair, dressed in black jeans, blue shirt and a black leather jacket was hiding on top of a giant container looking out through a pair of night vision goggles with a smirk. He had been hunting down Zechs Khushrenada for months and now he's finally got him where he wants him. He watched the speedboat slow down to a small dock and stopped as the 4 men climbed a ladder out of the boat. The blonde haired man removed the night vision binoculars from his face revealing warm, pale blue eyes, and got out his walky-talky.

"All right, lets roll!" he spoke into the handset.

Not long after the order was given swarms of SWAT team members armed with heavy machine guns and black ski masks filed out and moved into position ready to strike

*******************************************************************************

Zechs and his entourage climbed out of the boat and proceeded to walk to the designated area where he was to receive his new drug shipment. When he arrived he was surrounded by 7 fork lifts each holding a pallet stacked high with what looked like aluminum cans. Zechs proceeded to take one of the cans, pulled out a pocketknife, and cut the top off revealing a powdery white substance. He took his pinky finger and dipped it into the substance and tasted it. He was quite pleased with the taste as he grinned a big smile. This time he stuck his knife into the white powder and pulled a small amount out on the blade. As he brought the powder close to his nose to snort, a strong gust appeared out of nowhere suddenly blowing the small amount of white powder on his knife into the air. He looked up shocked find the blinding lights of a police helicopter coming down right on him. He quickly looked around as troops of SWAT team members surrounded him and his bodyguards, guns all fixated on them. A shadow was slowly approaching Zechs because of the lighting couldn't make out who it was, but as he got closer to him his eyes widened as to who it was, that blonde hair, those gentle blue eyes…. Quatre Winner. The look on Zechs face was enough to put a big grin on Quatre's face forever, but suppressed the feeling. He walked up for Zechs to get a good look at him, which caused his face to go from a look of shock to a scowl, to which Quatre only smirked in response. Zechs had a tight grip on the gun he had concealed behind his back. Quatre almost knowing what he was thinking, went from a smile to a dead serious look and shook his head from left to right tell him not to try it. Zechs, not listening to his request, drew his gun anyway, but was too slow as Quatre drew his gun first and shot Zechs in the shoulder. Zechs reeled back and started running in the opposite direction clutching to his shoulder. The SWAT team members were getting ready to fire, but Quatre stopped them.

"Hold your fire!!" Quatre commanded as the troops backed off, and took chase after Zechs.

Zechs fired shots back at Quatre while running away, which cause him to take cover, and get on the radio.

"Everybody hold back out there. Let him run, he's not going anywhere!" Quatre shouted into the radio as he continued the chase after Zechs.

Zechs ran and ran trying to get away from police, but to no avail. Cop cars kept cutting off Zechs from running off in certain directions. Slowly starting to panic and running out of places to run, as well as Quatre starting to catch up to him, the only place left to run was up a ladder on the deck of a freight boat. Zechs quickly ran up the ladder to the deck and ran along the side of the boat trying to avoid the ever-present cops. The bullet wound on his right shoulder and the blood loss was now catching up to Zechs and he slowed down and leaned down against a nearby rail suddenly feeling very cold, light-headed and tired. He took his gun and emptied the spent clip when the bright searchlights of a helicopter flashed right on him and a SWAT team sharpshooter aimed at his head. Quatre who had finally caught up with Zechs on the boat motioned for the helicopter to back away before they killed him, which was the last thing he wanted. After the helicopter had flown away, Quatre had his gun pointed at him and tried to talk down a rather erratic Zechs and prevent him from doing some thing stupid.

"There gone. Nobody's going to hurt you, Zechs. Just please put the gun down." Quatre reasoned. But Zechs said nothing, only reaching behind his back and pulled out another clip for his gun, and reloaded.

"Please, don't make me." Quatre begged, pulling the hammer back on his gun.

"AAAAHHHHHHH!" Zechs yelled, bringing his gun up. But right as he did Quatre opened fire shooting Zechs in the chest 5 times. Zechs staggered back and fell over the side of the rail and plummeted into the cool waters of the harbor. Quatre ran over to the rail and looked over into the water, only to find Zechs floating in the water face down, dead.

"It didn't have to come to this…" Quatre said. He sighed and got off the boat. He had just killed Triese's son, and there was gonna be hell to pay.


	3. The Blood of my Child

OK, new characters so more ages. On with the story…

Treize – 58

Mamoru – 32

The Replacement Assassins

Ch. 2: "The blood of my child"

The sun was shining, the birds were singing, it was the perfect day. But the Khushrenada family was too much in a somber mood to notice. Friends, family and close friends were all gathered in the cemetery dressed in black, morning over the loss of Zechs Khushrenada. At the grave, standing in front of the closed casket were 2 figures. The taller one was a woman dressed in a tasteful all black dress and a hat with a black veil covering her face. But even with the shroud you could make our her navy blue hair and eyes of a matching color, but were currently red and puffy from constant crying. 

The other, much smaller figure was little boy that could have been easily as the taller woman's counterpart, dressed in a little black suit was obviously too big for him. His navy blue eyes held a rather confused look as to why he was dressed in an itchy suit holding his mama's hand yet alone crying, and why his daddy wasn't there. A third figure slowly walked up to the duo. He stood next to the little boy and took his hand in his. The child eyes lit up when he realized that it was his grandfather, and Zechs father: Treize Khushrenada.

Treize had a rather regal aura around him that almost demanded respect. He was dressed in black business suit and trench coat following the theme of the funeral. He had blonde slicked back hair, with a few strands of white hair by his temples. His blue eyes were almost the spitting image of his late son, save for the fact that his were a tad bit darker. Though he was in his late 50's he looked amazingly younger, as his face held few wrinkles. Zechs was his only child and his mother died young, he loved him very much and felt very angered yet he didn't show it. He looked back down at his grandchild and couldn't help but smile back at the small boy and he motioned for him and his daughter- in-law to take their leave.

Treize, with grandson in hand and her mother beside him, slowly walked towards the limo parked in the parking lot, with the entire congregation of the funeral following them about 40 feet away. When they got to the parking lot what Treize saw sickened him. Standing there leaning against his car with his arms folded was Detective Quatre Winner: his son's killer.

Quatre had been troubled since he had killed Zechs. He became a police officer to make a change in the city, to "fight the good fight" and clean up the streets. Sure he thought that he would have to get down and dirty but he never thought that Zechs would do something as crazy as he did and force him to kill him. Its funny actually, he's been on the force for 10 years and a narc for 7 and still the thought of taking another person's life bothered him. But he didn't have a choice, right? That makes it OK in some sense, dosent it? But if it was the right thing to do, then why does he feel so terrible? 

Treize let go of his grandchild's hand and scowled at Quatre. He along with his head bodyguard Mamoru Chiba, and 5 other goons walked towards Quatre. Quarter remained still and impassive from Treize's well-deserved glares and the menacing appearance of Mamoru. 

Mamoru was Treize's head of security Treize's top bodyguard. He has been so for 10 years, and has earned Treize's trust. Like everyone else he was dressed in a black Armani Suit and had short black hair that was combed back. He wore dark sunglasses that housed a pair of dark blue eyes. He is well known for being methodical and through and was a dangerous man indeed. Mamoru decided to open up a nice little conversation with Quatre.

"Could be considered inappropriate for a murder to be at his victim's burial, detective." Mamoru said while pulling off his sunglasses.

"Just here to pay my respects." Quatre replied. Treize then decided to break his silence.

"Respect? For the blood of my child? My orphaned grandson?" Treize questioned.

"Your son made his choice." Quatre reasoned.

"And you made your choice, Detective, the you choose to pursue a vendetta against me…against my family." He sneered.

"Detective, you position offers you far more opportunity for arrogance than safety" Mamoru warned. And with that the Treize and his people walked away, leaving a weary Quatre to wonder just what they had in store for him.


	4. The Task

The Replacement Assassins

Ch. 4: The Task

All of Chinatown was in celebration of Chinese New Year. Firecrackers were popping, street performers were dressed up doing shows for the people on the streets, and people were crowding the streets and alleyways in praise of the New Year. In a certain crowded alley, a man, dressed in sliver colored dress slacks, a business jacket of the same color, a black button up dress shirt, a silver tie, calmly walked through the crowded alley cutting through people. The dark sunglasses he was wearing were focused on staring straight ahead of him. After 5 minutes of cutting through street vendors, and performers he had finally reached his destination: J's.

J, as he's so called, was a contact and accountant for outside contractors that wanted to work for Treize. That's how it was for most assassins on Treize's payroll, he was a rather reclusive man, and almost never contacted the assassin's himself. Anyone that wanted work for him saw people like J for contracts and also for payment. J was an old man with long gray hair, and always wore sunglasses also he always a trademark black Chinese shirt and pants.

When the well-dressed assassin reached the door to J's, 2-armed men quickly recognized him and opened the door for him. He quickly walked in and down a long hallway. He finally reached the old man who was currently doing some bookkeeping and payroll. J suddenly stopped writing and looked up at his visitor, he then reached over to a small wooden box and pulled out a black envelope and handed it to his guest. He took the envelope and prepared to leave but stopped when he found that J was still holding on to the envelope. He turned to face him and J spoke to him in Japanese.

"Don't open it. Mr. Khushrenada needs to see you personally." He said, while letting go of the envelope.

"Hn…" the assassin replied while tucking the envelope into his inner coat pocket, and taking his leave.

Later that afternoon the assassin that Treize had asked for pulled up in front of his beachfront home. He exited his car and was escorted into his home by a bodyguard. After many twists and turns, they reached a large dining room where at the end of the large table at the crime boss himself, being served a cup of tea by a maid, and his head bodyguard Mamoru standing off in the corner. The assassin slowly walked up to the side of the table, as Treize motioned for the maid to take her leave, and took a sip of the hot liquid. There was a uncomfortable silence as for a few moments and Treize just sat there studying his cup of tea. Treize then finally spoke up, breaking the silence.

"My son is dead" Treize quietly spoke up.

"My condolences" The assassin apologized, removing his sunglasses revealing his ever emotionless eyes to Treize and Mamoru.

Treize nodded and motioned for his guest to have a seat next to him, to which he complied. Treize continued.

"A child is irreplaceable." Treize stated while staring into his tea. He set it down. "Which brings us to your task." He finished. Mamoru then crept up behind Treize's guest and stood next to him before speaking.

"It involves a cop." Mamoru revealed. "That's why we want an outsider."

He was shocked to say the least. A cop? Why a cop? They knew that he only took out criminals and murderers. He knew what Treize wanted, and he also knew what it meant to turn him down. But could he really kill an innocent person?

As if Treize was reading his mind, Treize put a hand on his to snap him out of his revere and spoke up.

"After that, your obligation to me ends." Treize offered. 

Finally after a few moments of thinking, he looked up at Treize with cold emotionless eyes and grunted in approval. Treize smirking in approval stuck his hands into a small box beside him and pulled out a hollow point bullet, the same bullets that all his assassins used for his contracts, and placed it in front of him. He took the bullet and left his home but the same question kept running through his mind: 

Could he kill an innocent person?


	5. A Moment of Compassion, A Lethal Betraya...

The Replacement Assassins

Ch. 5: A Moment of Compassion, A Lethal Betrayal

The next day after receiving his new contract, the assassin traveled to target's residence. It was a small house that lay on the beach, adjacent to a highway. On the right of this highway lay a chain of beachfront houses, to the left were steep and rugged mountains, where the assassin was currently standing holding what looked like a leather pouch. He kneeled down and rolled out the contents of the leather pouch, which were various parts for a high-powered sniper rifle. He quickly, and effortlessly assembled the parts together, and screwed on the silencer. When the gun was set-up, he locked on the clip and rested on the hard rock and aimed at the front of the cop's house waiting for his target to appear. About after 5 minutes of waiting a black car pulled up, and as the car pulled up 2 figures walked out of the house. The taller one was a woman with brown hair pulled up into a ponytail and dark blue eyes. She was wearing an apron that covered a white blouse and gray colored sweats. She seemed to be very pleased as the black car pulled up, but her happiness was nothing compared to the other person beside her.

He a small 7-year-old boy with sandy blonde hair, and bright blue eyes shining with happiness. His grin was practically from ear to ear as the car pulled up. He was fighting the urge to run to the car like having to take a piss real bad. When the car came to a complete stop and the engine stopped, Quatre stepped out of the car with a basketball. He walked up to the woman and quickly kissed her on mouth before kneeling down and holding the basketball in front of the small child. The child didn't hesitate to run up and up into Quatre's arms, ignoring the basketball. Quatre smiled in delight as he swung the small boy around.

The assassin was watching all of this through the scope of the rifle and he felt something that he never quite felt before. It wasn't completely alien to him though; he has felt this way before when he was with HIS family. He continued to watch on as Quatre was playing with the little boy that was apparently his son; he tightened his grip on the handle and released the safety. He was gritting his teeth and his mind was telling over and over in his head to pull the trigger, but his heart was telling him not to. His body was tense and seemed to be frozen in time as the events were unfolding down below. His finger inched slowly to the trigger as he had a perfect head shot, but too many thought were running through his mind. Pull the trigger, complete the contract, his obligation to Treize ends. Don't pull the trigger, get killed, and the target gets killed anyway. It was a seemingly easy choice his heart was telling him this was wrong in every way. He lowered his eyes and closed them trying to collect himself but the same thought was running through his head, 'This is wrong!'. He looked into the sight again to try and pull the trigger, but watching them playing and laughing wasn't helping. Finally the assassin lowered his head in defeat and removed his finger from the trigger and dropped the gun. He buried his head in his hands in frustration, tears practically almost coming to his eyes.

Quatre felt a strange presence in the mountains and looked back at them, only to see nothing out of the ordinary and the assassin had already departed.

********************************************************************

A steady rain had poured in that afternoon. After collecting himself the assassin walked into a small Buddhist shrine. Once he got inside he walked up to the giant bronze colored statue of Buddha, said a short prayer, and placed a couple incense in what appeared to be a small cauldron filled with sand. He himself wasn't a Buddhist but that didn't mean he wasn't going to show respect. He kneeled down in front of the statue and lowered his head, deep in thought. Not long after he arrived a Buddhist monk with black hair down to her waist, dark violet colored almost black eyes, dressed in a long orange robe and with prayer beads in her hand kneeled down in front of the statue next to the assassin and looked up the statue. She was a close personal friend to the assassin's family and was very good friends with his mother. She was quite pleased to see her son and even though he would never admit it nor show it in his stone cold face, he was glad to see her too. But from the moment he walked in she had sensed something troubling him.

The assassin opened his eyes and looked over at Rei Hino who had a warm smile on her face. He looked back down and spoke up.

"I went against Treize today." He brought up suddenly, in a monotone voice.

Rei's smile changed to a surprised look as her eyes went wide. He continued

"There's going to be consequences." He stated, looking up at the statue.

"What do you want me to do, Heero?" Rei asked him. The man now known as Heero kept staring straight ahead.

"I'm deeply worried about my mother and sister. I would like you to take them from the L-5 colony to someplace safe." He requested. Heero reached into his pocket and pulled out a large sum of money and placed it in Rei's hand.

"Here is some money, help me send it to them." He told her looking into her eyes there almost pleading with her. Rei looked at the money in her hand and then looked up at Heero, she nodded in approval and Heero cracked a very rare smile at her.

****************************************************************

"I see…" Mamoru said, as he just got word on his cell phone that the target was not taken care of. He hung up the phone and walked out to the patio area of Treize's house where he was currently sitting reading a newspaper. Mamoru walked up beside him and waited for Treize to look up at him. When he did he delivered the message.

"There's been a problem." Mamoru told him. 

*****************************************************************

"Yeah this is Max." A rather old man spoke in his cellular phone. Max, has he liked to be called was the eccentric owner of a car wash in downtown LA. He was also another contact point for Treize, as well as a weapons specialist, giving assassins the tools they need to do the job. He stood at an average 5' 11", had all gray hair. He eyes were always covered with dark sunglasses so it was impossible to tell his eye color.

"Max, it's Heero." He spoke, calling from a pay phone in Chinatown.

"Hey, what happened? The piece wasn't where I left it? I put it there myself." Max asked.

"It was there. I need a passport. Can you help me?" Heero said quickly changing subjects.

"Yeah, ill just call Andy Olmos. No problem." Max said.

"No. He works for Treize." Heero corrected. He couldn't afford to get caught by Treize's man now.

"Everybody works for Treize! What do you want?" Max exclaimed, while kicking a soda machine making it pop out a soda.

"I want someone who dosent." Heero told him. Thinking for a moment Max remembered someone.

"Um…I know this broad. I try not to use her too much because she can be a real bitch sometimes, not to mention a royal pain in the ass. You know what I mean? Her name's Usagi Tsukino." Max offered.

"Usagi Tsukino?" Heero repeated.

"Yeah, she in the Olive Building. I'll hook you up in the morning, where you gonna be?" Max said.

"Better if you don't know." Heero told him.

"All-right, Hee-man. Watch your back." Max hung up, as did Heero. Heero took a quick look around and disappeared from plain view and found a place to lay low for the night.


	6. Office Massacre

OK time to reveal more ages. I'm glad you guys are feelin' one of my first fics, and ill try to crank out chapters faster.

Usagi – 27

Rei – 48

The Replacement Assassins

Ch. 6: Office Massacre

Heero looked at the address he had gotten from Max for location of the Olive Building, and then looked at the actual Olive Building its self. It was a very old olive colored, 5 story apartment building that looked very dilapidated on the outside. He walked inside and looked at his paper again to that she was on the 5th floor in room 502. As he walked up the stairs he noticed that there were no other tenants in the building, and it made him wonder if she was the only person that lived in the building. As he approached the 4th floor he noticed some loud rock music blaring from the 5th floor and it only got louder once he reached the front door of room 502.

Usagi Tsukino grinned in delight as she was taking care of the finishing touches on her latest work of art. She wore a simple black spaghetti strap dress that overlapped the bigger black straps of her black bra, and black boots that ran to her lower calf. She had ocean blue eyes and long golden blonde hair that was tied up into a rather sloppy bun as multiple strands of hair ran down the sides of her face. A Indian looking tattoo tribal band was on her right arm as well as some type of flower on the top of her right hand, and something that looked like a pair of dog tags hung from her neck, accept the dog tags were replaced with a small razor blade. She was checking over her completed passport through a magnifying glass when a loud buzz went off signaling her that someone had rung her doorbell. She looked over at a monitor across the room to see a tall well-built man dressed in gray slacks, a black polo shirt, and a gray sport coat with messy brown hair with strand of it running down the front of his forehead and covering his eyes. He had on a pair of sunglasses so you couldn't see his eyes anyway. Pressing a button on the intercom nearby, she spoke into microphone.

"Yeah?" she called. A surprised Heero looked around and saw the intercom by the doorbell. He responded.

"Usagi Tsukino?" He spoke in a cold monotone voice.

"Never heard of her." Usagi replied looking at the suspicious character standing in front of her front door.

Heero, not in the mood for childish games, stepped away from the door and walked up the surveillance camera and looked gave a death glare before speaking.

"Max. Max sent me." He spoke in an icy tone.

Usagi sighed, not at all phased by Heero's menacing demeanor and put up what she was working on.

"Great…" she muttered. "OK hang on a second." Usagi replied getting up from her chair and exiting the back room of her apartment/office. From her office it lead to a large bedroom. She grabbed a leather brown leather jacket and threw it on her bare shoulders and turned her music down. Once exiting her bedroom it led to her front office where a large computer and a printer sat on a long brown desk facing her front door. She took a seat behind the desk and spoke into another intercom.

"Alright, come on in." She spoke pressing a button releasing a lock she had on a door.

Heero cautiously opened the door and looked around before walking in completely and closing the door behind him. He walked up to the desk.

"Can I help you?" Usagi asked, while gripping a gun that was holstered under her desk.

"I need a package." Heero replied, buttoning the front of his coat, and bringing his hand together in front of him.

"A package? What the hell's a package?" Usagi asked, playing dumb on purpose if people needed her services they needed them to be very specific for legal purposes.

"Papers. You know…" 

"No, I don't know. I'm kinda slow that way. So I think your gonna have to be VERY specific." Usagi told him.

Heero was losing his patience. Max was right, as cute as she may be, she was a real bitch. Heero walked closer to the desk and leaned down in front of her and removed his sunglasses and gave a death glare with his cold, hard, blue eyes, that as dangerous as they were, were also kinda cute in Usagi's opinion. She gripped the gun under her desk even tighter and he got close enough to feel his breath.

"I want…forged…documents…too the L-5 colony." Heero slowly spoke for Usagi to understand.

Usagi quickly regained her composure after the initial of looking at his eyes. She's come across a lot of the strong, silent type and wasn't about to be intimidated by this one.

"Okay. You said forged. We'll do it. Now have a seat." She offered him. Heero backed away from her and silently declined her offer preferring to stand, with his hands in front of him.

"Or not." Usagi said.

"I don't have much time." Heero told her.

"Alright. The Colonies? L-5? Well, what you need to gonna cost you. At least a grand."

Heero once again walked up close to Usagi, opened up his coat, and reached into his right inside coat pocket. Usagi once again tightened her grip on the gun she had hidden under her desk. Heero proceeded to pull out a bunch of fresh one hundred dollar bills, and neatly laid out 10 bills on her desk in front of her, and back away to his previous position. A rather surprised Usagi grabbed the money and checked out the bills.

"How soon did you say you needed this?" She asked while inspecting the money.

Heero didn't immediately reply, he was busy look at the monitor that displayed the view of her front door. He turned to look at her before replying.

"From here I go to the airport. One hour." He said.

Usagi's jaw dropped and shot Heero a disbelieving look.

"That soon?" Usagi sighed, and picked up her digital camera. "Alright, back up."

Heero didn't move he just stood there giving Usagi a questioning look.

"You have to back up because I'm taking your picture, otherwise it won't come out." Usagi reasoned.

Heero finally complied and took a step back.

"Smile…and say 'Flight from prosecution'" She joked, as she took his picture. Usagi then loaded the picture into her computer to do a little touching up. The picture came up as a ghost image.

"I can fix that." She spoke as she worked her magic and made the picture come in clear. Afterwards she pulled out a document to get Heero's personal information.

"OK. What's your name?" She asked.

"Heero." He responded.

"And…" Usagi pried trying to get his full name

"Heero Yui." He clarified for her.

"Thank you." She sighed. This Heero character was about as much personality as a handball. She then realized how weird his name sounded.

"You sure you want Heero Yui? Because that sure as hell is an unusual name."

"Hn…" was his only reply.

"Riiight…Heero Yui it is." Usagi said, brushing away a stray lock of hair that fell out of her bun.

Just as Usagi was performing the finishing touch on the computer work, her doorbell rang again. Heero and Usagi immediately looked at the surveillance monitor to see 2man dressed in long black trench coats and dark sunglasses standing at her front door.

"Yeah?" She asked in a weary tone of voice. They didn't look like they needed forged documents.

"Usagi Tsukino?" One of the men asked.

Not liking where this was going, she once again gripped the gun under her desk and responded.

"Never heard of her." She said. 

Heero and Usagi shot each other a questioning look before look back at the monitor. The 2 men pulled sawed-off shotguns from underneath there trench coats and stepped away from the door. Heero immediately backed up to the right side of the door, while Usagi drew her gun and ducked behind her desk. 

1 man fired at the door, shredding it to pieces, then cocked and fired at the computer monitor blowing it up. He paused briefly waiting to Usagi to pop up. Usagi popped up and ran to her bedroom door, but the gunman was expecting it. He was about to shoot her, when Heero pounced on him, raising his gun up deflecting the shot to the ceiling. Heero quickly grabbed the handgun that was on his waist and fired 2 shots into his chest, and 2 more at the gunman behind him. As he stepped out the door, he saw another figure 10 feet away come out of hiding and fire a machine gun at him. He quickly stepped back into Usagi's apartment and backed up against a wall. 'Shit…' he muttered to himself.

Usagi had run through the closed door and speed through her bedroom to the door on the other side of the room, which was her workplace. Once in that room she ran through another door, which was a darkroom that also had a window that lead to a fire escape. She entered the darkroom and headed for the window when a gunman popped up waiting for her at the fire escape.

"Fuck!" She exclaimed, backing away from the window just in time to avoid machine fire. Usagi quickly turned around and ran in the direction she came shooting a couple shots behind her every few seconds to the gunman that had now come in through the window.

Heero wasn't fairing any well either. He and the gunman were exchanging shots and were getting nowhere. Heero backed away from the side of the door and backed up through the door Usagi had run through. The gunman he was fighting with ran up to the door and dove into Usagi's office hiding behind her desk to avoid Heero's shots.

"AAAHHHHHHH!" Usagi screamed, as she was running like a bat out of hell down the open doors and charging at Heero. Heero totally forgot the gunfight he was in and turned around to wonder who was screaming like that. He saw Usagi running full speed towards him and what she was running from: another gunman. Heero quickly turned around and kneeled, pointing at the gunman tailing her.

Usagi saw Heero standing in the way and was getting ready to charge right through him when all of a sudden he spun around and kneeled aiming the gun at the gunman behind her. When he did, she saw another gunman right in front of her, and he was getting ready to fire. She stopped dead in her track, right next to a kneeling Heero.

Usagi and Heero each fired their shots at the gunman at their backs. Heero killed his target, while Usagi kneecapped hers effectively knocking him out of the picture. After the shooting ceased and the dust settled Heero looked at Usagi and she at him both with bewildered looks on their faces. Heero stood up and looked both ways, he saw another gunman but lost track of him. It was uncomfortably silent as Heero looked around and kept his ears open for anything unusual. Suddenly he heard the cocking of a shotgun. He quickly grabbed Usagi and pulled her to the floor with him as the appending shot sailed over their heads and destroyed the glass on the door they were just by.

"This way!" Usagi yelled as she ran through doors once again going towards the darkroom, avoiding the shots coming through the other side of the wall care of the gunman and his shotgun.

Once the gunman reached the darkroom, he carefully moved through the darkened area dodging through the negative filmstrips that hung from the ceiling. When he reached the open window, he stepped onto the fire escape and looked over the railing, he saw Usagi running down the steps towards the escape ladder. Once she reached the bottom she ran down the street, which also gave the gunman a clear shot from his position to kill her. He was about to pull the trigger when Heero silently leaned down from the cat walked above, and grabbed the gunman by the neck, lifted him up 4 inches and snapped his neck.

Usagi ran down the street, with her less then perfect record, she had to get away before the cops caught her. It was too late because right as she was going to cross the street, a cop car stopped right in front of her. Usagi stopped herself by bracing against the car, at that point she knew running was useless, so instead of running in the opposite direction, she simply sighed and put her hands up in surrender.

"Hold it right there!" the cop yelled. She complied.

One of the officers put her hands behind her back and handcuffed her, while the other read her rights. But she ignored what they were saying, she was too busy looking up at the roof of her building where Heero was standing watching her get arrested. She glared daggers at him and Heero merely held the same cold emotionless look he always had. He emitted a low growl in his throat and left before the cops saw him, while the cops pushed Usagi into the squad car to take downtown.


	7. Bait

The Replacement Assassins

Ch. 7: Bait

Treize and his accountants were hard at work at Treize's office in the middle of china town. They were counting out the day's take as they passed hundred-dollar bills through counting machines and added them up the old fashioned way: abacuses. Mamoru walked into the head office where Treize and his accountants worked and walked up to the desk where Treize was going over his profits. He interrupted Treize from his work by informing him of how the assault on Heero went.

"He is still out there." He spoke, as he noticed the dejected look come across Treize's face.

"He wont get to the Colonies." Mamoru reassured.

"We shouldn't be chasing our problems, Mr. Chiba. We should be solving them." Treize spoke, not stopping from going over his work.

Mamoru, knowing that Treize wanted this handled quickly, asked him for advice.

"How would you like this handled?" He asked him.

Thinking about this for a moment, Treize removed his reading glasses and looked up at Mamoru.

"Bring in professionals…men of Heero's talent."

Usagi was bored out of her mind, here it was late afternoon she been sitting in a interrogation room for the past 4 hours and not one person has come in and asked her any questions. Suddenly a man with shiny blonde hair and blue eyes that were almost the same color as hers walked in, holding a file and 2 cups of coffee. He handed her one of the cups of coffee and shut the door behind her. She sighed as she prepared herself to spin another web of lies.

"Swindle, bad checks, mail fraud. No heavy felonies here. Still, what you lack in weight, you make up for in volume." Quatre spoke going over Usagi's rather extensive police record, while she only smirked remembering those fond memories. Quatre went on.

"Twelve arrests before your sweet 16. It's a little unusual for a girl that age to be in such trouble, don't you think?" Quatre asked her.

"Well, I've always considered myself a feminist pioneer." Usagi responded.

Quatre couldn't help but chuckle a little at her comment before continuing.

"Well you've been clean for about 4 ½ years. That's a good thing. You've either been very smart, or very, very lucky. Now lets talk about your office, and 5 dead bodies." Quatre said.

"Detective? Do you honestly think a lightweight like me did all that damage?" She asked him, taking a sip of her coffee.

Quatre then showed her a ghost image of Heero that they pulled off the computer the cops confiscated. "Who's that?" he asked.

"Looks like a ghost." She told him.

"Oh c'mon Usagi, you can do better then that." Quatre mused. Quatre put the picture down.

"You're a bright girl in a bad place. I can help you out." Quatre offered.

"Yeah. Well, you see, Detective I cant seem to remember one single bad place a cop helped me out of."

"That so? Well, somebody had to help your ass out when you were 14." Quatre spoke looking at her file. "Custodial placement. Finding your ass a place to live as temporary as it may be. But you don't remember that, do you?" He asked her.

Usagi glared at Quatre. "You don't know a god damn thing about me!" She spat.

Quatre lost his patience and stood up. "I know everything about you. It's all here in black and white. Go on, read it!" He contradicted. Quatre pulled out a plastic bag and dumped about 20 forged passports, all Usagi's work, on the table.

"You're looking at 2 years, honey. Minimum." He warned. "Oh your not as smart as you think you are, are you? Because if you were, you wouldn't be messing around with Treize Khushrenada!"

Usagi paled and raised an eyebrow "Treize Khushrenada!?"

"That's right, the big crime boss himself. Where the hell do you think all those dead bodies in your office came from?" Quatre repeated.

Usagi gulped, the last person he ever wanted to cross was Treize Khushrenada. That's why she made sure she stayed away from him, she was determined to make her money without the help of him.

"OK! This is the part where I get to talk to the court-appointed attorney!" She told Quatre. Quatre only smirked.

"Your not under arrest, Usagi. That means you have no right to an attorney." Quatre informed her. Usagi set her cup of coffee down and stood up.

"That also means I can walk out the fucking door." Usagi said walking towards the door. When Quatre stopped her by putting a hand on the door.

"Sure you go right ahead, but I tell you what. There's somebody on the other side that wants you dead." He warned. Usagi merely folded her arms across her chest and rolled her eyes.

"I'm scared, Detective. You see me shaking?" Usagi asked in a cynical tone.

"I sure as hell do." Quatre answered. "I've got a deal for you. Hmm? You tell me everything you know about that guy, I can make this all go away. Put you under police protection." Quatre offered once again showing her the picture with the ghost image of Heero.

"You know what? I honestly don't know anything. But even if I did, I wouldn't give it to you." Usagi told him.

Quatre shrugged her shoulders, he had to appreciate her honesty, and removed his hand from the door allowing her to leave.

"Suit yourself." Quatre said walking back to the table.

"Last chance to arrest me, Detective Winner." Usagi half offered, half taunted. Quatre did answer he simply opened the door for her and allowed her to leave.

"I didn't think so." She said walking out of the station. Quatre watched her walk out and smirked.

"She's in over her head." Quatre said aloud, which a uniformed officer heard.

"Put Morris and Duke on her." Quatre told the officer who stopped in front of him.

"Why don't you just charge her with something?" The officer asked him

"She red meat. I'm gonna put her on a hook, see what the dogs do. I'm gonna use her as bait because as much shit as she's in, she'll lead me right to Treize." Quatre answered with a smirk.


	8. I Still Need Papers

The Replacement Assassins

Ch. 8: I Still Need Papers

Usagi slowly trekked through the now shot up 5th floor of the Olive Building. She slowly looked around corners and tried not to step on any broken glass in order to not alert anyone of her presence incase someone, good or bad was still around. Once she knew that she was the only one on the floor, she cut through the yellow police tape on the back entrance of her apartment, which lead to her darkroom.

"Shit!" she muttered to herself, as she seen all her pictures ruined and her chemicals confiscated. She looked at the filmstrips that hung from the ceiling and they too were over exposed and ruined. Realizing that she was now a hunted woman, she needed to get away from the scene of the crime, and fast.

She ran into her bedroom and grabbed a leather backpack from her closet. She quickly ran through her dressers and to make a check of what was still there, and what wasn't. She grabbed everything she could find from bras and panties, to sunglasses and make-up, and stuffed it into her bag. After grabbing all of the important stuff, she grabbed another pair of boots and ran into the bathroom. She proceeded to strip down to her underwear and bra. Then she removed her hair from the sloppy bun it was in, and it cascaded down and ran down to about the small of her back, covering the butterfly tattoo that was there, and stuck her head into a sink full of warm water washing most of her make up off, save for her red lip stick. While drying her face and hair she heard a fait noise coming from her office. She stopped dead in her tracks and looked up to see what the noise was. After looking around and not seeing anything she shrugged it off and got dressed. She slipped on a pair of tight leather pants and put on the pair of new boots. She then grabbed a very thin red button up red sweater and put that on leaving the buttons unbuttoned for the time being. After getting dressed, she ran back to her room and grabbed her brown leather jacket when she heard a small fait noise again, it sounded like someone walking on glass. Usagi once again paused and looked around trying to find who or what was making that noise. After a few minutes of silence, Usagi just shook off the feeling as she thought she was just hearing things. Usagi went back to her dresser and grabbed her wallet and a couple hundred dollars she had stashed away, when she heard the same sound of glass cracking under someone's feet as before, only this time it was louder and it sounded closer. Usagi panicked and grabbed a pair scissors that lay on the dresser and turned around. She saw what looked like a persons shadow coming from her office. Usagi slowly walked forward, gripping the pair of scissors in her hand tightly trying to find the owner of the shadow. When she got to the door she saw clearly whom the shadow belonged to. Heero Yui was standing there, arms folded across his chest, against the wall, looking at her with those same trademark emotionless eyes. Usagi threw her hands up in both relief and frustration as she realized who it was.

"Jesus Christ!!" She exclaimed at Heero who had her all riled up for nothing.

"What the hell are you doing here!?" She yelled, buttoning up only the 2 bottom buttons on her sweater.

"I still need papers." He said in monotone.

Usagi looked at him and tried not to laugh at his statement "Yeah great. How do you expect me to cook a passport? With crayons and construction paper?" Usagi asked as he walked pass him into what used to be her front office. "I mean take a good look around you. Anything not shot full of holes, the cops confiscated. My 3,000-dollar computer is now a paperweight. You know 4 years of work are down the drain because you picked my door to walk through." She chided Heero. But he remained impassive.

"We'll go Max." He told her, not really feeling sorry for having her apartment shot up.

"What for?" She asked.

"For help." Heero replied.

"You must be kidding, I'm not going anywhere you! You're like a walking goddamn bulls-eye. Your just a shit magnet."

"Maybe. But so are you. Your safer with me." Heero reasoned with her. Usagi was getting ready to walk out the door when she stopped and looked at Heero.

"Is it my perfume or something? Because you're the second guy today to assume I need, want or will accept help. I wont. I don't need the cops, and damn sure as hell need you!" Usagi sneered and got ready to walk out the door. Heero had now lost his patience with this woman. As much of a bitch as she may be, she wasn't going let her stop him from saving his family.

"Its not an option." Heero said in a deadly calm voice, drawing his gun. Usagi stopped dead in her tracks and turned around and gave a surprised and shocked look at Heero who appeared to be dead serious.

"OK, and what happened when I tell you to go fuck yourself?" She asked. Heero answered by pointing the gun as her head. Usagi gave a death glare that would of hade Heero proud

"If that's the way you wanna play it. But when the gun is in my hand were going to have conversation again." She replied in an icy tone. Heero grabbed Usagi and left the apartment.


	9. Car Wash Shootout

The Replacement Assassins

Ch. 9: Car Wash Shootout

"Alright, Nikk come on, what have you got for me." Quatre asked the department resident computer expert. She was currently working on the ghost image that they pulled from Usagi's computer and trying to restore the picture, to see the last person Usagi serviced and the one responsible for the 4 dead bodies in her apartment. Because even through Usagi has done a lot of shady shit in the past, she was no killer and he knows for sure the she cant viciously snap a grown man's neck with her bare hands. Quatre was loosing his patience, Nikk was not moving fast enough.

"You know my kid works faster." He taunted.

"Hey! There's not much there, bear with me here." She defended. She frantically typed on the keys trying to reconstruct the image finally after a couple seconds, she smiled.

"I think I got it." She said, as the picture slowly brightened and came more into color, then the picture of Heero Yui finally came into focus and was clean and clear.

"There's your ghost." She replied satisfied at her accomplishment. 

Quatre didn't respond for a moment, he was taken back by the image in front of him. His eyes…they were so detached…so void of emotion. Quatre had never quite seen anyone like him before but then again he wasn't totally surprised. Someone who single handedly killed 4 people in the manner he had, had to be at least hardened and somewhat detached. 

"Good stuff, Nikk." He finally recovered.

Heero had "borrowed" Usagi's black 64' Impala and the 2 arrived at Max's Car Wash and Garage. It was late afternoon so it was closed to the public, which was a good thing, because the less Heero was seen the better. He and Usagi got out and Heero grabbed her by the arm as they entered the back way into the car wash area of the building. This area consisted of a 75 foot long hall way, on the right side were windows that looked into the car wash were you could see your car being washed if you didn't wish to ride in the car, on the left were room varying from Max's office to a janitors closet and a soda vending machine backed against the painted brick wall. Heero knocked on Max's office door "Max?" he asked knocking harder. After getting no response he turned the knob to go inside anyway, but it was locked. Heero emitted a low growl from his throat and he, with Usagi in hand, walked down the long hallway to the garage area of the building, hoping Max was there.

When he arrived to the garage, the lights were out and it was deathly quiet. Growing suspicious at the scenario, Heero drew his gun, and let go of Usagi, telling her to stay put. He carefully walked around looking for any signs of the old man. "Max?" He yelled, hoping that he would get an answer but to no avail. Usagi looked around as well not liking the fact that Heero was tense all of a sudden. She looked down below her feet, she was standing on top grill of what appeared to be a giant oil pan built into the ground, and she noticed that a body was floating in the oil.

"Oh shit!" she yelled backing away off the grill. Heero looked down into the pit to find Max, with a bullet wound in his head, he had been killed, but by who?

His question was answered as 3 men all armed with machine guns, and dressed like the men from Usagi's office walked in and surrounded the pair. Heero immediately pointed his gun at the man standing in front of him and a standoff occurred, but even he knew it was all in vain because even if he killed him the other 2 would kill him. One more person walked into the garage with them with a rather arrogant smirk on his face.

"You 2 make a cute couple. He got something I don't Usagi? I thought you hated the strong silent type?" Mamoru mused as Heero now had the gun pointed at him while Usagi glared at him.

"You're welcome to try." Mamoru taunted, almost daring Heero to pull the trigger. Heero was crazy but he wasn't stupid, as he reluctantly lowered his gun in defeat.

"Take his gun. Check them." Mamoru commanded, and the 3 gunmen took Heero's gun and frisked both he and Usagi. After they were completely disarmed, Mamoru walked up real close to Heero. They stared each other down for a few seconds, and then Mamoru smirked.

"I beat my head against the wall trying to anticipate your next move." He told Heero in a superior tone, like he accomplished something great. But then again, track down the infamous Heero Yui was quite a task, but killing him was another thing.

"Actually I beat Max's head against the wall..." Mamoru laughed, walking away from Heero "trying to anticipate your next move." He finished, proud of the fact that he tortured a man to death, it made Heero sick.

"Treize will be very pleased we found you." Mamoru informed him, staring Heero right in the eye.

"Okay. Obviously this situation has nothing to do with me. So I'm just gonna walk out that door, and pretend I saw nothing." Usagi spoke up, trying to reason with Mamoru.

"I'm sorry Usa, but this time you're in a little too deep. You picked the wrong boyfriend." Mamoru said. Calling her "Usa" made her skin crawl, she's made a lot of bad decisions in her life, going out with Mamoru briefly was one of the worse.

"Boyfriend? No, wait. I'm his goddamned hostage. I hate this asshole, and I hope you shoot him in the nuts!" Usagi exclaimed. "I just met this loser, this morning. And he told me his name was Heero Yui. I mean come on, really, what the hell kinda fake name is Heero Yui?" Usagi pleaded trying to get out of this.

Mamoru walked away from Heero and approached Usagi and smirked which made her wanna slap that smirk right off his face, but she decided against it, considering that she was begging for her life. "His name IS Heero Yui." Mamoru informed her, "And you know what happens to hostages, they tend to get killed." He whispered to her in a low icy tone, which made her shudder.

"Cuff him." Mamoru ordered, walking away. He then stopped turned around and looked at Usagi briefly "Cuff them both." He corrected and walked out.

Usagi glared daggers at Heero, he had just gotten her into a whole world of shit, and he didn't look sorry in the least. One of the gunmen forcefully grabbed Usagi by her jacket and dragged her over to one of the hydraulic car lifts that were currently raised. The gunman pushed her down under it and grabbed her hand cuffing it to the lift, during the struggle; Usagi kicked the gunman in the shin hard. The gunman responded by kicking her backhanding her in the face. After she was securely locked down, Usagi wiped the blood from her lip and smirked at the gunman.

"How's the leg?" She taunted. The gunman answered by kicking her right in front of her knee. A loud pop was heard was and Usagi screamed in pain as her right knee was dislocated, and her kneecap shifted. "How's yours?" He taunted back seeing the extreme paint she was in.

Heero watched the whole scene with disgust. He never meant to get Usagi into this, he just planned on detaining her long enough to get her to make his passport, after all he had already paid her in advance. But what they were doing to her was just wrong, and in some way he felt responsible for her life. His thoughts were cut short and a fist collided with his stomach. It caught him off guard more then it hurt, as he didn't really see it coming. The gunman who punched him pulled out a pair of handcuffs and tossed it over to the man standing behind him. Heero saw his chance.

As soon as the cuffs were in the air, Heero quickly spun around and grabbed the gun from the gunman behind him, and put him in a chokehold, using him a human shield. Heero immediately fired shots at the gunman in front of him and a few at the other one off to the side who was tending to Usagi. Heero quickly looked behind him and found a door that led to the long hallway of the car wash, he shot the lock off and ducked out of the garage. The gunmen not caring for the life of the other gunman being used as a human shield, fired away hoping to get Heero, but it was too late, he had already been long gone and the gunman collapsed to the floor, dead. 

As soon as Heero reached the hallway, he was greeted with another gunman on one end, and Mamoru on the far end. He immediately fired shots in both directions until he ran out of bullets. After he ran out, he ducked behind the soda machine waiting for the firing from Mamoru to cease. When Mamoru let up, Heero took the opportunity to dive through the window and into the actual car wash itself. Mamoru and his men quickly arrived and tried to shoot him through the window he just went through but Heero was too fast and managed to lose them through the big hanging brushes of the car wash.

"Bring the car around! Flush him out!" Mamoru shouted. Half of the men went to get the car to cut off Heero's escape, while the other half stayed with Mamoru to try and kill him before he gets out.

Heero ducked down behind a barrel, thinking. He needed to get out before he flushed out, and he needed to rescue Usagi in the process. Looking up he saw the power switch to the car wash. He quickly turned the switch on, and the brushes, rollers, water jets, and dryers came to life. Mamoru's gunmen slowly trekked through the loud car wash, wiping water out of their eyes and trying to block out the very loud noise that the giant machine was emitting.

Heero saw that the gunman was having difficulty seeing, and took his chance to attack him. He quietly grabbed the gunman in a chokehold and snapped his neck, and picked up 2 of his handguns. Heero then sensed 2 more goons coming from both sides who had apparently heard him kill the other gunman. As soon as they appeared, Heero took out the one coming from his right easily, and pointed the gun in his other hand to the head of the goon coming the left. The gunman had a very shocked look on his face as Heero had the gun pointed to his head, Heero didn't hesitate to pull the trigger, but to the gunman's delight, it was empty. He gave a "you're fucked now" smirk to Heero, but too his dismay, Heero smirked too, and he brought the gun in his other hand and unloaded 3 shots into his chest. Heero watch him fall down, with machine gun in hand, and landed right next to roller board, the kind used by mechanics when they worked on cars and had to work under them.

Heero tossed the empty gun aside and placed the loaded gun on his waist. It wasn't long before more men showed up, and when Heero saw another one come up behind him, he dove and landed on the roller board back first, grabbed the machine gun that lay on the floor and shot at the gunman, killing him, and continuing rolling backwards under the swinging brushes. The last of the gunmen in the carwash with Heero was slowly walking through the brushes, when he heard a weird noise, it like something was rolling. It got louder and louder and then it stopped. He looked down to find Heero laying down under the brushes with a big machine gun pointed at him. It was the last thing he ever saw as Heero unloaded the whole clip into his body. Mamoru, who had just arrived at the scene, gritted his teeth in frustration, as empty roller board stopped by his feet, and his men were wiped out.

Usagi was frantically trying to stand up, but it was quite a task when your knee dislocated. She finally managed to get up on one leg and tried to slip her hand out of the handcuff, but it wasn't working. Looking up she saw some grease that was all over the bottom of the hydraulic lift, smiling, she grabbed some and rubbed it all over her cuffed hand. It seemed to be doing the trick as her hand was slowly working is way out. Suddenly Heero came out of nowhere and grabbed her cuffed hand and proceeded to uncuff her with keys be pulled from the dead body of one the goons he killed. Usagi, as much as she hated him, couldn't help but smile and sigh in relief.

"Jesus! I wondered if you were coming back." She told him in a surprisingly refreshing tone of voice. Heero put her arm over his shoulders and allowed her to use him as a crutch to get out. 

When the pair reach outside, the quickly ran to the black car they arrived in. But as soon as they got there, Mamoru was they're waiting for him with another gunman.

"Shit! Get down!" Heero commanded Usagi, as he ducked behind the car, and opened the door for Usagi. Usagi quickly complied as she crawled in avoiding gunfire. Heero on the other hand returned fire with his machine gun, when another car pulled up. Mamoru had called for back up as the car unloaded with more gunmen. Heero exchanges fire with the Mamoru in front of him and the men behind him. Heero then dove in the car and lay down as he avoided gunfire coming from both sides. Usagi, who had somehow made it to the backseat, reached into her pocket and handed Heero the car keys.

"Keys, take the keys!" Usagi offered as Heero quickly grabbed the keys and started the car up.

"Give me your gun!" Usagi yelled, offering to return fire, Heero wasn't going to argue with that, and he tossed one of the last 2 handguns he had left to her. Usagi was returning fire with the gunmen out side and she noticed that they weren't moving yet.

"Get this car moving. Come on!" Usagi yelled at Heero, but trying to turn a car on when you're under very heavy fire can prove to be a daunting task. Heero finally got engine running and threw the car into reverse and stepped in the gas. Heero seeing the only way out was through the car wash, drove through it in reverse avoiding the ever-present gunfire from Mamoru and his men.

Quatre finally arrived on the scene after getting the call of gunfire at the car wash. Quatre pulled up at the exit of the car wash and drew his gun. Upon seeing Mamoru's gunmen, Quatre sprang into action.

"Freeze! Put that gun down!" Quatre ordered. But the gunman merely turned around and pointed his gun at him. Quatre reacted by shooting him first killing him. Quatre then saw a car speeding through the carwash like a bat outta hell. Reacting on instinct, he turned around and pointed his gun at the driver.

Heero was charging hard through the car wash in reverse, his vision obscured by the steam in the carwash. When Heero reached the exit, he saw another car blocking the way out.

"Oh shit!" Usagi screamed, as she saw the car blocking the way out. Heero drew his gun and pointed it at the figure standing behind the car, who had his gun pointed at him. He quickly recognized the person behind the car as the cop that took Treize's sons life, Quatre Winner. Heero in that split second looked into his eyes and knew that he didn't want to kill him. Heero dropped lowered his gun and instead decided to drive through the car. Quatre seeing what he was trying to do dove out of the way of the car and Heero plowed right through the blocking car. Once Heero reached the street, he threw the car into drive and sped off down the street.


	10. The Replacement Killers

The Replacement Assassins

Ch. 10: The Replacement Killers

Treize removed the reading glasses from his face and rubbed the bridge of his nose in frustration.

"Another problem, Mr. Chiba?" Treize sighed, as he prepared himself for another line of excuses from top bodyguard.

"Heero was lucky. It won't last." Mamoru reasoned.

"Don't confuse luck with skill." Treize pointed out. "I served with Heero's father back in the colonies, during the wars." Treize told him. "He was an honorable man, and a great warrior. But he could be cold and ruthless when backed into a corner. The man was patron saint of the impossible. Heero is just like him, but to a higher degree, I can see the look of hate he holds in his eyes when he kills, just like his fathers. Try to imagine a worse case scenario, the ultimate fucking nightmare! And it would come nowhere close this man when he gets pissed off." Treize warned. Mamoru looked at Treize with wide eyes, he knew Heero was good and he knew what he was capable of doing, hell he just witnessed him shoot his way out the car wash, with Usagi no less. But maybe he was giving Heero too much credit.

"Where are Heero's replacements?" Treize quickly asked, changing subjects. Heero father was chapter in his life he wanted to forget about.

"Arriving as we speak." Mamoru said. 'OK Heero, your good. Really good. But lets see how you stand up to 2 men of your caliber!' Mamoru thought to himself with a smirk.

The sun was setting as a plane slowly arrived into the busy terminal of Los Angeles International Airport. When the exit gate opened, may people stormed out of the plane to catch taxis, meet loved ones, or finally coming home from a long trip. Once everyone left the plane, 2 men remained waiting for people to exit. They slowly walked out of the gate and trekked towards the airport lockers.

The man on the right stood at a tall 6'6". He was well built, wore a simple black button-up long sleeve shirt and black pants and black leather gloves. He wore boots of a same color and they ran all the way up his calves. His short, brown hair had a long bang that ran down the side of his face and covered one of his jade colored, impassive, ruthless, eyes.

The second man stood on the left and was well shorter than the green-eyed man at about 6' even. He too has a muscular appearance to him, and appeared to be of Asian decent, as he wore white baggy Chinese style pants and shoes. His long white button up Chinese shirt looked a little big on him and the sleeves almost covered half of his ungloved hands. He wore dark sunglasses that covered his eyes, but he held his chin up in the air in a regal almost arrogant manner.

The duo shortly arrived to the lockers and opened one of them, pulling out 2 black briefcases and a note, and a picture. The taller one picked up note and he along with associate read the note.

Trowa Barton and Wufei Chang 

_Due to some an unfortunate turn of events, one of my top assassins refused to eliminate a contract. This is no easy target and seeing as how im running out of options I have no choice but to leave the task in your very capable hands. Enclosed you will find a picture and some background information._

Trowa, took the note and shredded it, and looked at the picture and smirked before handing it to Wufei. Wufei merely looked at the picture with disgust and tossed it in the trash before he along with Trowa exited the airport.

Heero Yui was trying with all his might not to look up. Here he was in a hotel room with a very beautiful woman, and here he was kneeling in front of her with her pants off, examining her knee. He was fighting with every ounce of will power in his being not to look between her tightly closed legs.

Usagi wasn't as comfortable with he was either. She didn't particully like the fact that he had a complete stranger kneeling in front of her with only her underwear, and her small red sweater on. But if he could ease the pain of her throbbing right knee then she's was all for it. And then she'll make him pay…

Heero shook his head and focused on the task at hand. He gently massaged her right leg trying to feel it out. Her knee was in bad shape it was badly bruised and swollen, and he could tell her kneecap was not where it supposed to be. He tenderly felt around for her kneecap trying not to cause more pain. Finally he located it, it was off to the left. He slowly bent her knee up and slowly moved the kneecap over some. Usagi hissed in pain as he done so. Once he moved it over to where he was satisfied, he stopped and looked at her.

"It's going to really hurt…" Heero told her.

"Just do it." Usagi breathed, bracing herself for the oncoming pain.

Heero nodded and in one quick motion, he quickly straightened her knee out, and her kneecap popped back into place. Usagi gritted her teeth in extreme pain, but it only lasted for 4 seconds, as immediately the pain ceased and the swelling went down almost immediately. Heero grabbed a near by ice pack and placed it on her recently popped leg, and turned to stand up when he paused as he felt something hard and cold pressed against his temple.

Heero slowly turned his head and looked down the barrel of the gun and into the looked into the anger filled eyes of Usagi.

"I told you we would have this conversation again." Usagi told him in an icy tone. Heero simply glared back at Usagi.

"You son of a bitch! What did you get me into with Treize Khushrenada!?" She commanded. Heero sighed and looked down not answering her question. Usagi then poked Heero on the side of the head with the gun, breaking him from whatever he was thinking about.

"Put your gun down." Heero commanded in a low non-monotone voice.

"Now would you let me walk out that door?" Usagi asked him with a smirk. Heero looked her with an even deadlier glare, she got her answer.

"I didn't think so." She said, getting ready to pull the trigger.

"Do it." Was his only reply, but this time it was in a low venomous tone.

"Do it." He repeated again in the same tone, Usagi glared even harder at him daring him to try something.

And he did. In one quick smooth motion, he grabbed the gun and turned it into her, forcing her wrist to bend in an abnormal way, she quickly released the gun, as Heero snatched the gun from her and push her down onto the bed she was sitting on. Heero then pounced on top of her jammed the gun into her neck, ready to pull the trigger. Heero gritted his teeth and looked down at Usagi with a look of pure hatred. He jammed the gun into her neck hard and it hurt and on top of the absolutely venomous look she was getting from Heero, Usagi thought that he was gonna pull the trigger, she couldn't help but give out a little whimper. Heero heard the whimper she gave and he blinked, the hateful look immediately gone from his face, and it was then he realized what he was doing. He was partially sitting on top of her chest, with a gun jammed into her neck. She was whimpering and her eyes were watery fighting back tears. Heero quickly removed the gun from her neck and rose off her chest. Heero got off the bed and slowly walked over a nearby sofa and plopped himself down on it.

"I'm sorry." He apologized, taking the clip out of the gun; he had to, what he had done was uncalled for. He almost lost it and killed her in a rage. Usagi sat up and looked at him with hatred as tears flowed down her eyes. He had been the first person in years to make her cry; she was actually in fear for her life. In a fit of rage, she leaned over and grabbed a glass ashtray and threw it at Heero. He quickly responded by breaking the flying ashtray with the butt of the handgun.

"I want to know what the hell is going on!!" Usagi demanded. Heero thought about it for a minute. She was just as involved as he was now, and he did need her for the time being, so it seemed like a reasonable question. Heero sighed and decided to tell her what was going on.

"All I ever wanted…was for my family to be safe. I would have done anything to protect them. Anything! It was my father's dying wish." Heero spoke with an emotion that not even she knew he had.

"Treize used my mother and sister to persuade me to do three jobs." Heero revealed. "The first 2 were criminals, killers…it wasn't difficult."

"What happened with the third?" Usagi asked, shocked that Heero wasn't just another criminal trying to skip out of the country.

Heero, looked at her for a moment and then looked back down, closing his eyes remembering how didn't have the heart to take out the target. And he hated himself for it. If it were his father he would of done it, so why couldn't he? "I couldn't do it." Heero breathed, sounding like he almost couldn't bear to say it. Heero loaded the clip back into the gun and set it down on a nearby table, and picked up an old faded picture. It was a picture of middle-aged woman, and a small girl: His mother and sister. He looked at the picture briefly and stuck it back into his pocket.

"If I don't get back to L-5…" Heero paused looking at Usagi who had a small amount of concern on her face. 

"My family will be killed."


	11. Hostage Etiquette

The Replacement Assassins

Ch. 11: Hostage Etiquette

Heero did not have a good night sleep. He was too preoccupied with keeping a close watch on Usagi. He chose to rest on the sofa while Usagi got the king-size bed. He held a tight grip on the gun and was close to the door incase she tried to kill him or duck out in the middle of the night. But then again he was used to sleepless nights.

After Usagi awoke, she went to the restroom to freshen up. While she was away Heero decided to call Rei at the temple to check up on how she was doing. After a couple rings, Heero heard Rei's voice say "Hello." Afterwards they conducted their conversation in Japanese (though translated in English for all the non-Japanese speaking readers…including me).

"Rei, its me. How's my family?" Heero inquired, back in his normal monotone voice.

"I'm having trouble finding them." She admitted. "And Treize's men are searching for them as well." She told him.

Heero growled, and put his jacket on. "I need a passport." Heero said.

"Can you use mine?" She asked him.

Heero smirked and her proposal. "Thank you." He replied, and hung up the phone.

Usagi was straightening out the razor blade necklace around her neck and reapplied some red lipstick on her full rosy lips and walked out the bathroom. Hearing the conversation Heero had in the next room and not understanding a word, Usagi asked him.

"What was that all about?"

"I have a passport. Fix it for me, and then you can go. My family is running out of time" Heero pleaded with her.

Usagi slung her bag on her shoulder and decided that she will help him save his family. After as much as she hated to admit it, he did save her life on 2 accounts. "Ill need a picture." Usagi said.

Buttoning up his gray sports coat, Heero pondered what she said for a minute. Where could he get a picture? Finally an idea came to him. He grabbed Usagi's leather jacket and handed it to her as they left the hotel room and into the now pouring morning rain.

"What do you mean that's all you got, foo?" Exclaimed a fairly tall, well built man with a long chestnut colored braid that ran down to his ass, and indigo colored eyes that glared daggers at the man in front of him who was 20 dollars short of some money he owed him, and even more pissed off because he just lost another game on account of him.

Sighing, the braided man rolled his eyes. "Give me the money, and get the fuck outta my face." The timid man quickly complied and quickly ran away from him. He was about to go back to his game when he noticed through a nearby mirror a woman walk into the arcade. 'Usagi Tsukino?' he thought to him self, he turned around and it was a face his eyes didn't deceive him, there she was standing there with her fine ass. The braided man grinned and walked his way towards her.

Usagi walked into the crowded arcade with Heero not far behind. Not long after she walked in he saw a man with a long brown braid, walking towards her with a big grin across his face. Usagi rolled her eyes in disgust, the annoying Duo Maxwell was that last person he need to see right now, and quite frankly a person that she wanted to forget about.

"Goooooood Damn! You look good today, girl!" the braided man known as Duo complemented, eyeing Usagi with his eyes, trying to undress her. Usagi tried with all her might not to vomit.

"Not today, Duo." Usagi sneered, trying to brush Duo off.

"Hey, hey, hey! What's with the attitude girl?" Duo asked, putting a hand on her shoulder. "You need to spend time with me, get some of this love." He boasted.

Usagi smirked as he noticed Heero walking up. "Meet my new friend." Usagi offered, pointing to Heero.

Duo turned around and came face to face with the death glare of Heero Yui. Duo literally took a step back and looked on in shock not only because of his intimidating demeanor but recognized him as the person Treize was looking for so bad and how there's quite a hefty bounty on his head. But Duo was no bounty hunter; he was a simple gang leader and "businessman". But offering information leading up to his capture was quite lucrative as well.

"Sup, friend." Duo managed to squeak out. Usagi, telling that he was a little shaken, smiled and walked on with Heero not far behind. Once they were out of sight, Duo smirked and pulled out his cell phone. "He he he, time to get paid." Duo squealed, dialing on the cell phone.

Heero followed Usagi through the crowded arcade. He couldn't help but smirk at the look on the braided idiot's face when he saw him.

"Old boyfriend?" Heero asked her; curious as to how someone like her would know a worm like him.

Usagi scoffed "Ha! I try to stick to my own species." She answered, stopping in front of an instant photo machine. "Alright, here we are. Fastest passport photos in town." Usagi announced putting her tattooed hand on the machine. She removed the black curtain, and motioned for Heero to enter the small, dimly lit, booth. Heero entered the booth and took a seat on the stool inside, while Usagi took a seat on a stool located outside the booth.

"OK, now give me three bucks." Usagi told him. Heero looked at her with a raised eyebrow wanting to know what the hell she needed 3 dollars for. 

"Hostage Etiquette." Usagi clarified. "Kidnappers pay for incidentals." Usagi mused with a grin. Heero couldn't help but smirk at her reasoning, as he pulled out his wallet and handed her the money. Usagi loaded the dollar bills into the machine, when she noticed he gave her four by accident. "You gave me four, ill take it as a tip." Usagi said. "Sit still, and stare at straight ahead." Usagi ordered, replacing the black curtain.

Heero sat straight and looked ahead as he was told. The first flash went off as Heero kept perfectly still. Usagi wanting to know a little more about Heero, decided to pry.

"You know you could've saved yourself a lot of trouble by just doing that third job." Usagi reasoned. I mean if he was killing bad people, what's so wrong about it? 

"It was wrong." Heero replied, not moving, or making any kind of face trying to stay still for the camera. "Treize was taking revenge. A man named Quatre Winner killed his son." Heero revealed.

Usagi's eyes went wide with shock at that revelation. "Winner!? Holy Shit. You're getting yourself killed for a cop?" Usagi asked in amazement.

Heero looked down for a moment, then quickly look up. "No, not a cop." He corrected "His Son."

Usagi looked at the back curtain in a serious manner. "What?"

"A seven-year-old boy." Heero went on. The flashback had been playing in his mind ever since, having Quatre's son's head on his sights and not being able to follow through.

Usagi couldn't believe it, Heero wasn't just some lowlife killer as he thought he was when he first met him. He was just a man, protecting his family, by any means necessary. But be that as it may, he wasn't she knew that killing an innocent boy dosent justify the lives of his family. But judging by the despair in Heero's voice maybe he didn't know that.

"Why?" She asked, wanting to know why a monster like Treize wanted to kill a small child.

"Because that is how Treize Khushrenada deals with his enemies…through their families." Heero finished, looking down closing his eyes, ignoring the final flash coming from the camera. Thinking about what would happen to his family if he didn't get to L-5 in time, really pained him.

Usagi sighed. 'Poor guy…' She thought, "Alright Heero, your done get out of there." She requested, standing up wait for the photos to come out of the machine. Heero exited the booth and leaned against it, with his arms folded across his chest, and his head downcast with his eyes closed. For the first time Usagi felt for Heero, and what he was trying to do. She knew that he must have had a lot of thoughts going through his mind. 


	12. Escaping In One Piece

The Replacement Assassins

Ch. 12: Escaping In One Piece

"The pictures are almost done, Heero." Usagi told him breaking him from whatever train of thoughts he was having. Heero opened his eyes and looked up when he noticed some one walking by about 20 feet away. He stood out from all the other kids in the arcade, for one thing he was dressed in all black and was carrying a briefcase, as was taller than almost everyone in here, but that's not what made him suspicious. He held uncaring, un relentless, murderous look in his green eyes. Heero's eyes went wide when he realized what he was, 'Is he willing to go this far to extract his revenge?' he thought.

Without even thinking about it, Heero grabbed Usagi and pulled her close to him. He put his calloused hands on her head and brought her head close to his, there faces were only a few centimeters apart. Usagi was speechless and blushing brightly 'Is he going to kiss me?' she thought. Heero moved his head slightly and brought his mouth close to her ear, his hot breath making her skin tingle.

"Don't turn around." He whispered into her ear. Usagi, immediately picking up on what he was saying, quickly regained her composure and her cheeks returned to their normal color.

"Cops?" She whispered back into his ear.

"No…assassins." Heero said. But it was too late; Trowa had already smelled blood in the water.

Trowa turned in the direction of Heero and Usagi and walked towards them. His briefcase had a small button on the handle, which he pushed. When he did a hail of gunfire came from the end of the briefcase and right towards Heero. Heero grabbed Usagi and dove out of the way just in time to avoid the gunfire.

Wufei, who was stationed on the second floor of the arcade to keep a look out, saw the pair run by. He immediately pulled out his machine gun and opened fire. Heero and Usagi ducked behind a couple pinball machines to avoid his fire. Trowa opened up his briefcase to pull out the machine gun he was firing from, and Wufei flipped off the second floor and landed gracefully onto the first, and removed his dark sunglasses to flush out Heero better with his naked onyx colored eyes. Trowa and Wufei slowly walked around in a sweeping motion searching for the AWOL assassin. Heero hid behind a pinball machine, with Usagi in tow waiting for the right time to duck out to the back exit and escape through the connected parking garage. But then he realized that he left his pictures behind at the photo booth and that he would have to go back and get them.

"On my count, follow me, and don't look back!" Heero whispered to Usagi. She immediately nodded. Heero waited for Trowa and Wufei to be out of view.

"Now!" He whispered and Heero quickly dashed over to the shot up photo booth with Usagi hot on his heels, narrowly avoiding being seen by the assassins. Heero and Usagi stood with their backs against the booth trying to avoid being seen, when Heero grabbed the strip of photos that had just been finished, and stuck it in his coat pocket. With one of his objectives complete, Heero now focused on getting out the exit in one piece. Heero took Usagi's hand and he led her through the maze of arcades machines, to the exit. They almost had made it when Wufei had seen then out of the corner of his eye and opened fire on them. Heero dodged the fire and returned fire with his gun and they ran through the exit, Trowa and Wufei hot on their trails.

Heero had told Usagi to run, and that she did, she quickly sprinted like a track star down the parking garage, with Heero a couple feet behind her constantly looking behind him. Trowa and Wufei had reached the parking garage and had a clear open shot at Heero's back. Right when they were about a fire, a woman, in a white Ford Expedition pulled out of her parking space. Usagi has ran pass it, but Heero was in front of it. Thinking quickly, Heero ran and slid under the car just in time to avoid the fire from Trowa and Wufei, but the woman wasn't as fortunate. The machine gun fire hit the woman in the car and died instantly. 

Heero stopped himself from sliding with his gun and stood up to look back and see where they were. He was shocked to find that the woman who was in the car was murdered in cold blood by them. Heero glared at the 2 killers in a murderous rage 'Those animals!!!' he thought as he looked at the 2. Wufei could have cared less as reloaded, while Trowa merely stared back at Heero with empty eyes and he reloaded as well. Heero was about to go over there and kill them when Usagi stopped and yelled back at Heero.

"Heero lets go!" Usagi screamed, as she heard the sirens of a police car. Heero stopped in his tracks as well, as he heard the cop car. Heero, using his better judgment, tucked his gun back into his waist, and ran off.

The cop car was quickly approaching Trowa and Wufei from behind as they remained in the parking lot. Trowa sighed "Wont these pigs ever learn…" Trowa spoke in a low voice. He and Wufei turned around and proceeded to open fire on the police car. They managed to get both cops in the car, and then it crashed into a concrete pillar. One of the cops managed to fall out of the wrecked car and onto the ground he was still alive. Wufei walked over around the car to the downed officer, and eyed him with a look of contempt before shooting him with the rest of his bullets in his magazine.

Quatre was once again working late in his office, and wanted to call his wife to let her know that he was coming home a tad bit late. When he dialed the number, his son picked up the phone.

"Hello?" The small child spoke.

"Hey champ! How you doing?" Quatre asked his young son.

"Dad!!" He exclaimed. "What are you up to?" He asked.

"I'm making a shake. Listen to this!" Hey said, bringing the phone close to the blender.

"No, no, no. Let me talk to your—" Quatre was cut short as he took the phone away from his ear to avoid the loud buzzing of the blender. As he did this, a police officer came by and dropped a paper in front of him.

"Quatre, this just came it. We got 2 officers down in a shootout. We got to move now." The cop told him. Quatre sighed and brought the phone back to his ear.

"Hey, stop it for a minute, would ya?" Quatre asked. The noise soon ceased and Quatre spoke up again.

"Daddy's got to go to work now, OK?" Quatre said.

"Hey! Are you canceling tonight?" He complained.

"Come on. I only get to see you once a week. I wouldn't cancel." Quatre reassured.

"Because you promised we'd go to the movies." He wined.

"We are, we are." Quatre reassured again. "I'm going to take you to see the cartoon festival…" Quatre went on.

Mamoru smirked in delight; he had monitored the entire conversation with a directional microphone from outside his house.

"Well now, at least we know where to strike next." Mamoru said, as he got on the phone, to set up the assassination.


	13. Heero's Decision

The Replacement Assassins

Ch. 13: Heero's Decision

The rain simply did not let up the entire day, as it continued to pour down in sheets well into the afternoon. After narrowly escaping in one-piece form the 2 assassins, Heero and Usagi had made their way back to the Buddhist temple to pick up the passport from Rei. Heero and Usagi made there way into the small, dimly lit temple where the giant gold colored statue of Buddha lay. Heero couldn't quite put his finger on it, but something didn't seem right, and the fact that he didn't know what it was annoyed him even further. When he got to the small table that was in front of the statue, he saw something that made his stomach turn. There lay Rei Hino motionless, beaten to within a inch of her life and something that looked like piano wire wrapped around her neck. She had bruises everywhere, and may even have a couple broken bones; her face was almost unrecognizable due to the fact that it was covered in blood.

Heero ran around the table and kneeled down beside Rei.

"Rei!?" Heero asked, removing the thin metal wire from around her neck. "Rei?" He asked again, gently shaking her.

Rei slowly opened her non-swollen eye, and gave a slight smile when she noticed that it was Heero. Though it hurt to do anything, she managed to clear her throat and speak to him.

"I moved your family to L-1." She choked out, barely above a whisper. "But I told Treize's men they'll be in L-3." She finished.

"How long do I have?" Heero asked her in a quite tone. 

Rei paused for a moment, "Treize will find them by tomorrow night. Please Heero, get to them first. Don't let Treize win." She pleaded to him, pointing to something inside her robe. Heero reached inside her robe, and pulled out a passport with Rei's name on it. And for once in a long time, he gave Rei a genuine smile and Rei in turn gave him a smile before taking her last breaths and going limp in Heero's arms, she had died. Heero's smile had faded when he noticed that she had stopped breathing, and he gently shook her again.

"Rei?" He asked. No response. "Rei!? He desperately pleaded, hoping she would open her eyes, but he knew that she had passed on. Heero sighed and closed her dilated eye, "I'm so sorry, Rei. I never meant for this to happen." He whispered to her still form.

Usagi looked on in tearful silence. Though she never knew Rei, she could tell that she and Heero were very close. Heero was losing everyone that he loved or cared about, and if he didn't get to the colonies he wouldn't have anybody left.

Heero stood up and looked over at the Buddha statue. Heero glared at the statue for some reason, but it wasn't in hatred or contempt. Heero then quickly turned around and grabbed the tablecloth on the table and forcefully pulled it off littering all the candles, incense, and other items, onto the floor startling Usagi. Heero then draped the silk tablecloth over Rei's body, and left the shrine holding back the tears that threatened to come out of his eyes.

'Shit, at least he could of smiled. This looks like a goddamn prison photo!' Usagi said to herself, as she tried to fix up Heero's passport the old fashioned way with out the help of computers, something she hasn't done in almost 5 years. They were back in the hotel room from the night before, Usagi using the table, while Heero was sitting on the bed, with his back turned to her deathly quiet, smoking a cigarette. Heero wasn't much of a smoker, and he really wasn't smoking the cigarette he held in his hand, he was more like watching the cigarette slowly burn itself down to the butt.

"So how do you plan on getting to the airport alive with those 2 professional killers after you?" Usagi asked out of the blue, trying to pry Rei's picture off the passport without ripping anything.

"They wont be. Their here to finish my job." Heero said.

Usagi was confused "Why hire professional killers for a little kid?" Usagi asked.

"Quatre's boy must die in his arms…then he will share Treize's pain." Heero spoke in a cold tone.

"The same thing happens to your family, if you don't get there first." Usagi reasoned, completely and cleanly removing Rei picture. "Winner's son for your family. Wow. It's a hell of a choice" Usagi spoke.

Heero glanced over his shoulder at Usagi for a moment, and then went back to looking at his burning cigarette. 

"People die. Children die." Heero reasoned. He was truly sorry for what was going to happen to Quatre's son but it was out of his hands, and his family practally had less then 24 hours to live if he didn't get to L-1.

"And no way out of it?" Usagi asked, pasting Heero "Prison Photo" onto the passport.

Heero looked back over his shoulder at the hard working Usagi, and his mind went back to when he had Quatre's son in his crosshairs. The pure look of innocence and happiness playing with his father was a picture he just couldn't shake from his mind. Usagi put on the finishing touches on the doctored passport and rose from her table, and sat down on a chair, right in front of Heero.

"I've spent whole days thinking about that one thing…that one good deed that's gonna wipe out all the shit that I've done. You ever feel like that?" Usagi asked him.

Heero looked up at her with a sort of shocked look in his eye, she had struck a cord within him. Heero had done lots of horrible things, and had killed many people even though they were criminals, they were still people he had killed in cold blood in the name of his family, his father.

"So you didn't want to kill a child. Welcome to the human race. You are a human being Heero Yui, not some emotionless killing machine. But standing aside and letting him get killed is no different than pulling the trigger." She told him, handing him the passport. Heero put the cigarette in his mouth and looked at the document. "Here. Now that's some of my best work." She smiled. Usagi then put her hand on his shoulder and a comforting manner and got up. "Have a nice trip." She said grabbing her belongings and walking out the door.

Heero sat there for a moment looking at his passport. Usagi was right, standing aside and letting the boy be killed was no different than killing him himself. But his family needed him, he had to get there before Treize's men find them. He could never forgive himself if anything happened to them, but then again he wouldn't be able to come to terms with himself if he allowed an innocent boy to be murdered in cold blood in his father's arms. Heero made his mind up, and grabbed his gray sports coat before walking out the door.

Usagi had reached the hotel lobby deep in thought, how was he going to find Quatre, and how was she going to stop 2 ruthless killers. She threw on her brown leather jacket and was about to walk out into the rain when a strong hand was suddenly placed on her shoulder. She immediately turned around to look into the eyes of Heero, she couldn't help but give a slight smile. Heero looked out into the rain and then back into her crystal blue eyes.

"Ill need guns." Heero said. Usagi smiled even more when she found out that he was going to help save Quatre's son. Usagi leaded the way out into the rain, she knew exactly where she could get a whole lot of guns for free.

"C'mon, time to pay that worm, Duo a visit." Usagi said, and they walked off into the night.


	14. For the Sake of a Child

The Replacement Assassins

Ch. 14: For the Sake of a Child

Usagi drove like a bat outta hell down the 101 freeway dodging in between cars. Normally Heero would have drove the car but seeing as it was stolen, and Usagi knew exactly where they were going, he relented and allowed her to take the wheel, a choice that he was obviously sorry for making. After 30 minutes of crazy driving, Usagi parked into an old abandoned water dam, where Duo's gang resided.

Usagi set the car in park and never broke stride, as she exited the car and walked over to were about 15 people were standing in front of a wall, with there backs to them. Heero stayed a few behind Usagi as she noticed a familiar long brown braid attached to the head of a man crouched down in front of the wall shooting craps. Usagi gritted her teeth and ran up to the braided man, who had a gun tucked into pants in the back. Usagi pulled the gun out of the braided man's back which shocked him and caused him rise up.

"What the fuck…" he exclaimed, as he turned around, only to be met with the stiff right hook of Usagi's fist. Duo hit the ground with a thud, and was met with his Usagi's knee on his chest, and his own gun pointed at him. Once everyone got over the shock of some strange woman assaulting one of there fellow gang members, all 15 men pulled out there guns. Half pointing at Usagi, the others pointing at Heero, who had 2 guns out and pointed at the crowd. Duo wiped away a small amount blood from his nose, and looked back glared back at the woman on top of him.

"You picked the wrong place for that shit!" Duo told her.

"Oh yeah? Well let's take it to the jury, see if they'll stand up for a rat!" Usagi spat back.

Duo visibly paled. She was on to him, and not only that she was blackmailing him. She knew that he knew that the one of the cardinal sins in Duo's gang was to never drop dimes on anybody. And boy did he drop a dime. If his fellow gang members found out he dimed Usagi and Heero out, he would be in a world of shit with his gang.

"What's the story, Duo? Tell me something. Should I dump on him?" One of the thugs asked.

Duo regained his composure. "Nah, don't trip. I got it all under control." Duo replied with a nervous grin.

"That's good. Now get up. GET UP!!" Usagi commanded. Duo quickly rose to his feet.

"Keep my dice warm." Duo sighed, handing them over to one of his friends.

Duo started walking over towards his black Chevy dually with Usagi right behind him with the gun at his back, and Heero not far off, looking back every once in a while.

"Now I know what your thinking…" Duo brought up walking over his car. "And it aint even like that. Man ya'll is marked with every drug dealer in town. Now, if I'd been seen with you 2 and I didn't make that call? Shit. Id be causing myself unnecessary drama." Duo explained.

Usagi simply rolled her eyes. "We wouldn't want that now, would we?" Usagi mused. They arrived at the truck. "Alright, break out with the munitions." Usagi ordered.

"Ha! That four-five's all I got." Duo said.

"You sure about that?" Usagi said. She then walked over to the car and stuck her hand under the car close to the back tires, and lo and behold she pulled out another hidden 45. handgun.

"Damn, I forgot about that one. You cant have that. That one's on me." Duo replied with a sheepish grin.

Usagi tucked the second handgun into her waist. "Give us your keys." Usagi said.

Duo gave her a crazy look "Say what? Nah, nah, nah see now your trippin!"

"You stand by your product, Duo?" Usagi asked.

"You fittin' to bust me a cap right here?" Duo asked her. Usagi cocked the gun and pointed it at his head. Oh yeah, she meant it. Duo sighed and handed his keys out.

Heero snatched the keys from Duo, and proceeded to open the tailgate of the truck. When he did they were met with loud blaring music coming from a giant bass box inside.

"Aw, damn. You think you can make that a little louder?" Usagi asked Duo over the music.

"I told you, their aint nothing in there, you got both my straps." Duo pleaded.

Heero crawled inside the truck bed and over to the bass box. He felt around it until he felt something that was a little hallowed. He knocked on it to confirm his beliefs and opened the hidden compartment to reveal a large black briefcase. Heero pulled it out and opened it to reveal a plethora of handguns, clips, and bullets. Heero closed the briefcase, and the tailgate, and got into the drivers side of the truck.

"Thanks for the ride." Usagi said to Duo, as she got into the passengers side.

Duo walked up to the front, and knocked on the window. Heero rolled the window down.

"How the hell am I supposed to get home?" Duo asked.

Usagi leaned over and answered his question. "You've seen our car. Twist the red wire and the yellow wire together."

Heero rolled the window back up, and sped off away from the area, leaving a stunned and truck-less Duo in the dust.

J was still in his office completing his account records for Treize when a gun was slammed down on top of his paper work, breaking his concentration. J looked up into the death glare of Heero's eyes wondering what the hell was he thinking.

"The time and place!" Heero demanded. J merely looked back at him with a blank look. Heero, not in the mood for games, turned the gun towards him and pulled the hammer back.

"The boy is at the beginning of his life!" Heero pleaded with J. After a long consideration, J sighed and relented the information to Heero.

Trowa and Wufei arrived at the theater 30 minutes into the cartoon festival. They chose to eliminate the target from a high position to get a more clear shot out. Trowa chose the left balcony, while Wufei was left with the right. After they chose there sides, they opened up the briefcases they were carrying and began to assemble parts for a high powered assault rifle.

Heero sped down the streets of downtown L.A. as fast the black truck would carry him. After many near crashes and cutting through alleyways, they arrived at the theater were Quatre and his boy were watching movies. Heero and Usagi ran into the theater, Heero taking the right isle, while Usagi walked down the left. Not wanting to draw any attention, Heero and Usagi hid their guns. They slowly walked down the crowded theater trying to find Quatre. 

Trowa and Wufei had finished assembling their guns and had now proceeded to scan through the crowd with their laser sights. Because there were on higher ground they were able to find Quatre faster, there he was golden mop of hair and all. And to the right sat a smaller boy, with the same colored mop of hair. Trowa adjusted the laser point on his gun and aim right at the base of the head of the small boy.

Heero, looking around, suddenly saw a red laser point. He quickly looked up to find the origin of the laser, and found it connected to the rife of Trowa. He then looked at what he was pointing at, Quatre son, right on the bottom of his skull. Heero, with not even thinking, quickly hopped on one of the seats and starting jumping over towards Quatre and his son.

Usagi saw Heero start running all of a sudden, and it didn't take long for her to put 2 and 2 together to see that he found the boy.

"Winner!" Usagi yelled. Quatre immediately turned around and looked over at Usagi with a bewildered look. "Get your kid down!!" She yelled.

Quatre quickly turned in the other direction, to see Heero diving at him. Quatre then grabbed his son and dragged him down with him.

Trowa pulled the trigger.

"Ahh!" yelled Heero as the bullet fired, and tore right through his right shoulder, as he dove taking the shot for the boy and landing on the floor. As he landed, he pulled out his gun and fired in Trowa's direction, making him duck for cover.

Not long after the shots rang out, all hell broke lose in the theater and people rushed to get out. Usagi tried to look for Wufei, but he found her first and shot at her. Usagi ducked behind a row of seats to avoid fire.

Trowa and Heero continued to exchange fire at each other, until he hid behind a row of seats, and Trowa lost track of him. Heero saw his opportunity and he crawled to the end of the row and waited for him to expose his side. When he did, Heero popped out and shot Trowa in the head. Trowa staggered for a little bit and then fell over the balcony landing with a thud on the theater floor. 

Heero quickly looked over to find Quatre and huddled over his son. Heero looked at his son for a brief moment, she was laying there hugging his father, scared for dear life, with hot tears running down his eyes, and he was looking back at him. Heero then looked back at Quatre, who had his handgun pointed at Heero in uncertainty, and a rather shocked look on his face. Heero broke the uncomfortable silence.

"Go! Get your son out of here!" Heero yelled, motioning with his hand. 

Quatre picked up his son, "Lets go, son!" Quatre yelled, running down the walkway avoiding fire from Wufei who was still at it. Quatre ran behind a pillar to avoid the fire from Wufei. Fortunately, Usagi was a few feet away from him and his son drawing his fire.

"Winner, get your boy outta here! I'll cover you." Usagi offered. Quatre looked down at his son, who was covering his ears with his hands in fear, and quickly nodded in approval. He rose from behind the pillar, and made it towards the exit, while Usagi provided cover fire by shooting at Wufei. Heero made his way to the movie screen and provided even more cover fire. 

Seeing as Quatre and his son had already made it out the building, and the constant gunfire from Heero and Usagi, Wufei decided to cut his losses and exited the balcony and disappeared. Heero seeing that he had left decided that he and Usagi should as well before he passed out from blood loss.


	15. I Cannot Run From What I Am

My goodness! Such positive feedback. Its such a flattering and humbling feeling to know that some people took the time to actually read and review my story, and that I truly thank you all. I'm sorry for the late update, but I having trouble deciding how im going to bream down these last couple of chapters. Also I originally hadn't planned on making a sequel for this story but the more I think about it the more I wanna change my mind. But then again I don't wanna ruin what ive worked so hard on typing thinking up a shitty sequel. Anyway, Id just thought Id ask you people for ideas, comments, and other little insights for a sequel, as well as your opinions on this story as well. Well, enough of my jabbering, and let go on with the story.

The Replacement Assassins

Ch. 15: I Cannot Run From What I Am

Quatre Winner just sat there on top of the squad car, still in deep shock. 'I can't believe he tried to kill my son, why couldn't I have seen it?' Quatre asked himself. Not long after the shootout, the police had arrived and locked the building down. Quatre's son was sitting in the back seat of his car, while Quatre stayed on the scene. Quatre just continued to stand there in deep thought; he didn't even notice the uniformed officer shaking his shoulder for a while. Quatre finally looked up at the officer in surprise, as he snapped him out of his reverie.

"It's my boy." Quatre spoke up, all of a sudden. "They went after my kid." Quatre spoke in a low, deadly tone of voice.

"Listen to me, were gonna lock down this goddamned city to find those 2 scumbags!" the cop reassured.

 Quatre shook his head. "Its not them." Quatre clarified "Tsukino and the 'Ghost' saved my ass in there tonight."

"What!?" the amazed cop asked.

"They saved my son." Quatre said, walking over to his car where his son sat. He opened the door and gave his son a tight hug.

"How you doing? You still scared?" Quatre whispered into his son's ear. He nodded "Yeah me too." Quatre admitted. He then opened the door back up and allowed his son to climb back inside.

"Hey guess what?" Quatre asked. "What?" replied his son.

""I love you." Quatre told him gently poking him on the nose. His son simply grinned back his father feeling a lot better "I love you too daddy." His son told him.

The uniformed cop, who talked to him earlier, caught up to Quatre who was now walking away from his car and towards a SWAT van.

"Have them take my boy home. Put them both under guard. Pick somebody good, I want to make sure they're safe until this is over." Quatre ordered the cop as opened the back door of the van.

"You want us to tell her what's going on?" the officer asked.

"Tell her whatever you want." Quatre said, while pulling out a heavy machine gun and checking it for bullets.

"What are you doing Quatre?" the officer asked knowing full well what he was doing, he was going to take the fight to Treize.

Quatre ignored him as he pilled up a load of bullets for the gun, hopped into a police car, and turned the engine.

"I will protect my son no matter what. Whatever happens, this ends tonight!" Quatre said, and he sped off down the street towards Chinatown.

Heero was back at the Buddhist temple kneeling in front of the Buddha statue. He removed his gray sport coat, black polo shit and white undershirt, to get a good look at the wound on his shoulder. Lucky for him it only grazed the top of his shoulder and left a deep gash, it could have been worse. Heero grabbed a small rag and wiped up any excess blood that oozed down his chest and back , and then dipped the rag in some iodine. He then braced himself for the pain as he quickly put it on top of the deep gash. Heero gritted his teeth in mind-numbing pain and let out a small, loud grunt. Once the pain subsided, he bandaged up the wound and proceeded to take all of the remaining bullets and clips he got from Duo, and checked all of the guns

Usagi looked on in both amazement and admiration. Heero Yui was a strange fellow, both ruthless and caring…in a ruthless sorta way. And now here he was patching up his own flesh wound and loading up enough guns to declare war on a small country.

"Heero?" Usagi asked in a caring tone.

"Call Quatre." He grunted, still holding in the pain. "He knows now, you'll be safe."

"Safe?" She asked. "What about you?" She asked, wanting to know why he was loading up all the guns.

Heero paused and took a deep breath. "My family is not protected. Usagi, I know I got you involved in this, when I didn't mean to. This was my fight, and I had no right to bring you into it. And it may not be much, but for what it's worth, im sorry." Heero responded

Usagi couldn't help but smile at Heero's apology. "So what are you gonna do?" Usagi asked, slowly walking up to where Heero had his back turned to her. "Kill all of China town just to get to Treize?"

Heero thought about what she had said, but he also knew there was no turning back from this. 

"I cannot run from battle…I cannot run from what I am." Heero said

Usagi stopped and kneeled next to Heero who still loading bullets into clips. "There's a difference between battle and suicide." Usagi pleaded.

"It would be the last death I cause." Heero told her.

Usagi knew that he was right, there was no turning back from this, Treize was still going to go after Quatre's boy and his family and they were running out of time. The only way Heero was going to stand a chance was to take the fight to him. 

"Fair enough." She sighed. "Okay Heero. Lets go." She spoke up.

Heero looked at her in amazement, and then looked back down ashamed. "Why…why do you care so much about a horrible person like me? The boy is safe for now, this is not your fight." he admitted.

Usagi was taken back by such a question and then blushed. "I know. But somewhere along the way I developed a deep seeded problem with watching you die." She confessed.

Heero looked at Usagi again with a surprised look. 'She cares about me?' Heero asked him self. Heero gave Usagi a small smile, before he noticed he was down to one bullet. It was a bullet he had been holding in his pocket all his time, and it was the bullet he plans on putting in Treize's head. Heero took the last hallow-point, Japanese carved bullet and loaded it into the clip.

"OK then, tonight we finish this, once and for all." Heero said, as he rose up and he and Usagi walked out the temple.


	16. Heero's Final Stand

Well it feels good to be back. My sincere apologies for the long awaited update, I had planned on writing the last few chapters of this fic before I went and celebrated my 22nd birthday in Las Vegas. But seeing as how I was going to Vegas, my mind wasn't in the right place. And then while in Vegas I entered a poker tourney and happened to get second place, resulting in a 250,000 cash prize. So I took my quarter mil, came back to LA and had one kick ass summer. Well needless to say when I blew all my money, and got off my hangovers I tried to return, but then FF.net had their hardware issues. You know, not that im complaining, this is a great website. But who are the dumbasses that run the place? I mean, really! There times where I see web pages run better than this place. Oh well, your back up and that's all that matters. Ok now that I've posted my editorial :P, let me wrap this story up.

The Replacement Assassins

Ch. 16: Heero's Final Stand.

Treize was in his office quickly packing up his business documents and packing them into his briefcase. After receiving word that Quatre's boy was saved Heero. And that one of the 2 assassins had been killed as well, Treize was not going to take anymore chances. If you want things done, sometimes you just have to do them yourself.

"I believe he'll come here next." Mamoru said to Treize and he pulled his gun out and checked it for bullets, waiting for him to finish packing up.

"Yes, so will Winner." Treize reasoned, closing his briefcase.

"I don't think we should wait around for either one of them." Mamoru said.

"Of course not." Treize answered, picking his briefcase up and walking towards the exit. "Call the airport, then our men in L-1. We will handle his mother and sister personally before Heero gets to them."

"And me?" spoke a third voice in the room that belonged to Wufei awaiting orders from his employer.

Treize stopped in his tracks and glared over in Wufei's direction. "Stay here. Earn what you were paid for." He said in a low tone of voice before walking out the door, Mamoru not far behind him.

Treize made his way downstairs with Mamoru and some other heavily armed bodyguards surrounding him, and exited the building into the corner of a large "L" shaped alley way. A black stretch limosouine with even more armed bodyguards surrounding it awaited Treize in alley as he along with Mamoru hopped in the car. Once they were seated, 2 body guards hopped in the driver and passenger side as the car slowly took off down one of the long alleyways, that were brightly lit due to the dozens and dozens of neon signs that hung above alley on thin wires and fire escapes. As the car reached the end of the alley 2 more body guards stood in front of them as well as an old wooden gate that led to the street. The car stopped as the 2 bodyguards proceeded to open up the wooden gate. As they opened the gate there were greeted by quite shocking and menacing figure standing in the shadows

Treize and Mamoru looked up to see none other than Heero Yui standing in front of them, armed to the teeth with small amounts of blood dripping from his right hand and a look of pure hatred in his normally empty eyes. Treize didn't even have a chance to blink as Heero quickly ran forward and opened fire on the car showering the hood with bullets. Heero quickly crossed his arms and shot both bodyguards on his left and right sides. The driver took this small chance and threw the car in reverse, as he tried to get away from Heero. Heero looked forward and quickly continued his assault on the retreating black car, unrelenting as he riddled the car full of bullet holes.

The car continued to swerve back and forth scraping between the solid brick walls until it finally reach the corner of the alley and crash into the wall, coming to a violent halt. Heero continued to run forward and he jumped on top of the hood and unloaded everything he had into the front 2 passengers of the car. Treize then decided to exit out the car in the middle of the entire melee but he didn't go unnoticed by Heero as he saw him out of the corner of his eye. Heero pointed his guns at Treize and Treize looked back in fear…then relief. Heero then looked down at his guns and growled in frustration as he realized why Treize was so relieved, he was empty. Treize saw this as a chance to get away and he quickly took off down the other long alleyway. After the initial shock, most of the bodyguards have collected themselves and have come out from hidden doors, popping out from fire escapes, and running down the alleyways.

Heero dropped his empty guns, pulled out 2 more and proceeded to unload on wave after wave of gunmen amazingly without getting shot once. Once all the men had been dispatched, Wufei popped out from above on a fire escape and opened fire down on Heero with his machine gun. Not having a chance to return fire, Heero covered his head and dove off the top of the hood and behind the car.

Treize proceeded to run as fast as he could down the alley, with gun in hand, trying to escape Heero's wrath. Treize stopped for a moment to catch his breath when he was more than half way down the alley. All of a sudden a loud crash was heard down the end of the alley a what appeared to be a linen truck sped down the alley right towards Treize. Treize looked close at speeding truck trying to make out who it was. He was shocked to find Heero's new partner in crime Usagi Tsukino driving the large truck towards him and judging by the loud scream she was yelling out, she had no intentions of stopping. Thinking fast, Treize looked up of see a fire escape ladder. He jumped up to pull it down and proceeded to climb up the ladder until he reached the fire escape narrowly avoiding the speeding truck below.

Though she missed him Usagi continued to speed down the alleyway until she reached the corner of the alley. Usagi crashed the truck into the black car, where Mamoru was still trapped inside, causing him to bang his head and get a nasty gash. Heero, who was occupied with Wufei at the time, was surprised to the person who had rammed into the car was none other than Usagi. Heero looked up at Usagi and gave her a reassuring smirk, which she returned in kind. Wufei proceeded to open fire with machine gun on the newly arrived roof of the truck. Usagi got out of the driver seat and ran down the middle of the truck avoid the gunfire. Wufei then stopped firing for a brief moment and loaded up a grenade launcher and fired into the truck. Usagi opened the back of the truck and dove out just in time to avoid the explosion of the truck.

Heero got up in the middle of the explosion and climbed up the fire escape ladder right underneath Wufei, and proceeded to climb up the fire escape while trying to avoid getting shot by Wufei, but wasn't having much luck as he was doing a pretty good job containing him. Heero looked up as he backed up against wall trying to find a way to get him, when he felt a window. Heero smirked as an idea popped into his head, so he climbed into the window.

Mamoru tried to shake out the cob webs as he climbed out the back of the demolished car. Usagi was trying to do the same thing after dodging that explosion. As she rose up, she saw Mamoru out the corner of her eye, and it seemed that he noticed her. Usagi looked around and quickly noticed an open back door to what appeared to be a restaurant. She didn't waste any time making a mad dash for the exit while Mamoru chased after firing shots in her direction. Usagi ran through the door and moved through some hallways and entered in a kitchen that was full of Chinese chefs. Mamoru ducked through the hallways and into the room she saw Usagi run into which happened to be a kitchen, Mamoru shot at Usagi right as she ducked behind a counter missing her head just barely. All the chefs ran out the kitchen as soon as the shots were fired which just left him and her, Mamoru smirked as he turned the lights off. Usagi continued to crawl behind the counters as quietly as possible and trying to stay away from Mamoru.

"Usa?" Mamoru spoke up "I going to find you." He said, as he slowly walked around the kitchen counters, trying to fish out Usagi. Usagi crawled around the opposite end with her gun drawn.

"But you could save me the time, and put a bullet in your head." Mamoru offered, in an amused tone of voice. "If the position were reversed, I'd do the same for you." He lied. Then he heard a loud noise of a pan dropping nearby. Mamoru smirked as he ran over to where the noise came from, and pointed the gun down at the person who caused the noise expecting it to be Usagi. Mamoru was surprised to find that it was only one of the Chinese cooks who were too scared to run away.

"Well are you?" Came a feminine voice from behind Mamoru's shoulder.

"Excuse me?" said Mamoru with a nervous laugh. She had him and he knew it.

"Going to put bullet in your head now that our positions are reversed?" Usagi clarified with a smirk.

Mamoru was now laughing nervously and began to turn around and at least try and get one shot off, but that was never the case. As soon as she saw the whites of his eyes, Usagi proceeded to shoot Mamoru with everything she had in her clip, when she stopped firing, Mamoru dropped to his knees and looked at Usagi with a smirk.

"Usa, does this mean you love Heero more than me?" He coughed out.

Usagi smiled and pointed the gun back at him. "You tell me…" she said as she fired her last shot into his head. Mamoru closed his eyes and fell down on his face dead. Usagi reloaded her gun and walked out the kitchen "Don't call me Usa." She said back to Mamoru dead body as she exited.

Wufei was getting confused. He hasn't seen or been shot at by Heero in a few minutes and we was starting to wonder if he had killed him. When suddenly he felt the familiar feel of cold steel pressed against his head. Heero had "trapped his king". Wufei's eyes went wide as to just how did he get behind him and just as soon forgot about it as he realized it didn't matter.

Wufei smirked as he dropped his gun. "Checkmate." He spoke in an amused tone.

Heero merely smirked. "Checkmate." He replied as he pulled the trigger, and Wufei's world went black.

Heero looked up quickly as he heard the footsteps of somebody climbing stairs. Heero knew who it was, and he quickly climbed up the rest of the stairs of the fire escape which led to a catwalk between 2 buildings, where Treize would be no doubt.

Treize was constantly looking back as he wasn't sure if Heero was hot on his trail or not. When he reached the catwalk he started backing up keeping a look out for Heero. Heero ran up the stairs and quickly and reached the catwalk in no time. When he got to the top he found the man he was looking for. Treize turned around just in time to find Heero Yui staring him down. Without even thinking both men drew their guns at the same time and pointed it at each others heads. As both men looked down the barrels of each others guns, they both realized that there guns were empty. Then at the same time they both pressed a button that released their empty clips and proceeded to reload. While Treize was searching his body for a clip, Heero was doing the same, then he remembered the last clip he loaded, it had the hallow point bullet and it was in his pocket. Heero grabbed the clip, loaded it into the gun, and slid the lock back with, the hallow point bullet loaded into the chamber. Heero then rose the gun back up at Treize's head before Treize had a chance to slide his clip back in. Treize looked back up shocked to find Heero had already reloaded and was just about ready to kill him. Treize was a proud man and he wasn't about to beg to Heero not that it would help anyways. 

Treize sighed in defeat, but then glared back at Heero with pure hate and Heero returned the gesture.

"The boy will die, Heero…as well as your family." Treize stated rather confidently.

Heero gritted his teeth "Not in your lifetime!" Heero stated in his default monotone voice, and he pulled the trigger shooting Treize in the head. Treize staggered for a moment and then fell over the catwalk plummeting down 7 or so stories to the hard concrete of the alleyway. 

Heero looked down were Treize corpse just fell, and breathed a sigh of relief. Right as he had done so, thunderclouds roared through the sky, as the rain that seemed to have ceased during all the fighting, resumed and poured down on Heero's head. Heero looked up into the sky and let another sigh go and the rain hit his face. After a few moments, Heero collected himself and walked off the catwalk and back downstairs.

Quatre looked down at the bloodied and shot up corpse of Treize. 'Looks like a missed all the action.' Quatre said to himself as he surveyed the alley to find it littered with bodies and mangled cars. Quatre looked up from where Treize's body lay as the rain once again resumed, and was surprised to find some one up there. Quatre quickly put 2 and 2 together and realized that Treize fell off that catwalk and that he was the one who did it. 'Ghost?' Quatre said to himself, as he ran through a door and climbed up stairs that Heero was no doubt going down.

Heero quickly ran down the stairs to find Usagi, he wasn't even sure if she survived the explosion from the truck. As he climbed down, Quatre continued to climb up, as the footsteps he heard were getting louder. Heero was hearing footsteps that were getting louder and louder as he was making his way down, he slowed down to a stop. Quatre ran up the stairs and looked up surprised to find the "Ghost" that has been eluding him all this time. At the same time they both rose their guns up at each other in a standoff. Heero looked into the bright blue eyes of Quatre and saw the restraint in his eyes and he knew that he didn't want to shoot him, just as much as he really didn't want to kill him. Quatre looked back into Heero's empty blue eyes and couldn't make out what he was thinking, as he had never seen some as stoic as this "Ghost" was.

Not long after Heero and Quatre met. Usagi decided to make her presence felt as she stepped in and pointed her gun at Quatre. Quatre saw her out of the corner of her eye but there was nothing he could do, as Heero internally sighed in relief to see that Usagi was OK before going to staring Quatre down. Quatre, having enough of the tension, sighed and closed his eyes and then he shook his head in a "no" manner and lowered his gun. Heero kept his gun pointed at Quatre wondering what he was doing, but then realized that they may be on different sides of that law but this wasn't right. Heero slowly lowered his gun, and motioned for Usagi to do the same. Quatre then stepped to one side and allowed to pass by. Heero accepted his gesture and made his way down stairs but right as he was just about to pass him Quatre stopped him by putting his hand on his chest. Heero looked at Quatre and he stuck his hand out and made a motion for the gun in his hand. Heero nodded and spun the gun around and allowed Quatre to grab it by the handle, allowing him to continue on his way. Once Heero made his way over to where Usagi was, he looked at her and motioned for her to do the same. Usagi complied, and tossed the gun over to Quatre.

"Hey…Ghost" Quatre spoke up grabbing Heero's attention, but he didn't turn around. "What's your name?" Quatre asked

Heero over his shoulder back at Quatre and paused for a moment before answering. "Heero…Heero Yui." He answered.

Quatre nodded. "Thank you Heero, thank you for saving my son. I don't care what you eyes tell me, I know deep down in your soul, you're a good person."

Heero looked back at him for a moment, before smiling and nodding and walking off with Usagi in tow. Not long after they left, the cops arrived on the scene. Quatre casually walked down the stairs as he ran into the SWAT team.

"Where are they?" One of the officers asked. Quatre never broke stride and he continued down the stairs. "They're gone." Quatre said as he left the building.


	17. Prologue: A Going Away Present

The Replacement Assassins  
  
Prologue: A Going Away Present  
  
Heero sighed for the hundredth time as he kept pacing back and forth in busy airport in anticipation. Heero hasn't seen his mother and sister in well over 3 years and to say he nervous was quite the understatement as his stomach was doing more back flips than a gymnast. Not even 24 hours had passed since Treize's death and with him most of his dark empire collapsed as well as his strangle hold on other illegal monopolies. Quatre's child was now safe and even though some of Treize's men will continue to search for his family, he knows that he will find them first, and eliminate anyone who would try to make a bid on their lives.  
  
Heero's inner thoughts were cut short as the loudspeaker was cut on announcing they were now boarding passengers for L-1 colony. With most of his baggage checked, Heero grabbed a small backpack was set to take off when a voice called out to him.  
  
"Hey." came a soft female voice that called out to Heero. Heero smiled as he immediately recognized the voice belonging to Usagi, he turned around to greet her.  
  
"Hello Usa." Heero warmly greeted. Usagi raised an eyebrow at the nickname but then brushed it off just the same for some reason she liked it when he called her that. Usagi reached into her purse and pulled out a yellow envelope and handed it to Heero.  
  
"I brought you a going away present." Usagi said. Heero looked at her in surprise before proceeding to open the envelope, revealing what looked like 2 black passports. Heero pulled them out of the envelope and read the names on the passports: Sung Ju Yui and Lee Mei Yui, her mother and sister.  
  
"For your family." Usagi chimed in to a blown away Heero. Heero looked down at the passports and then looked at up into Usagi's blue eyes and gave her a genuine smile. "Thank you." Heero stated.  
  
Usagi blushed a faint red and looked down at her feet. "You know I've never made a passport before for someone I didn't want to see leave." She admitted. Heero didn't answer, but instead just stared back her in appreciation, which made Usagi in turn more uncomfortable and blush a deeper shade of red.  
  
"Hey, this was a lot easier when they were shooting at us, huh?" Usagi asked with a nervous laugh and a hand behind her head in embarrassment still looking down. Heero's smile suddenly faded and he brought his hand up to her chin and rose her face up, suddenly looking into his dark blue eyes. Heero then quickly closed the small gap they had between then, and brought his lips down on hers in a gentle kiss. It wasn't a passionate love making kiss, or a tongue probing make out kiss, but a gentle, respectful "until we meet again" kiss. After a few minutes, Heero was the first to part leaving a very flushed Usagi shocked and surprised. Heero then put his hand up to her cheek and held it in a delicate manner and smiled again.  
  
"I will miss you. But don't think of it as goodbye, think of it more like.'Until we meet again.'" Heero said cryptically. And with that Heero removed his hand from her cheek and walked off to the boarding gate. Heero took about 10 steps before looking back again at a puzzled Usagi. Usagi removed her puzzled look and then smiled back at Heero who was still looking back. They kept staring at each other for a moment until a small group of people passed by Usagi's vision for a moment. When they moved, she had found that Heero had left from the spot he had been standing not even 5 seconds ago; it was like he vanished out of thin air. Usagi was surprised to find that he had just left like that, but soon smirked as she realized that Heero Yui was an enigma to all, and that it was an enigma that she was, date she say, in love with.  
  
"Until we meet again, Heero." She whispered aloud as she walked out of the airport.  
  
  
  
  
  
END  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Well folks, its taken 2 months longer than I had planned but I've finally completed my first full fanfic. And goddamn it I have to say it feels pretty damn good! It's better than sex.well.not really, but it's up there! Lemme know what you people think, all reviews are welcome. Im so happy right now you can't lower my self-esteem with flames (not that I want you to!). It was my pleasure to write this fic just as much as it was for you to read it.  
  
One Love, Sogetsu Kazama 


End file.
